By: Erica Jelley

“Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November.

All the rest have thirty-one

Except the second month alone,

To which we twenty-eight assign,

Till Leap Year gives it twenty-nine.”

Given that my birthday is in February, I have often wondered why it is so distinctly different from the rest of the months of the year. Why this month? Why the second month of the year? So, as it turns out there are several myths surrounding the origins of February, of which I will share two.

Myth 1:

As our modern calendar is loosely based off of the old Roman calendar, the myths surrounding February come from the time of the Romans. As legend has it, Romulus, the first king of Rome, devised a 10-month lunar calendar, which began at the spring equinox in March and ended in December. This explains why October (Oct=8) and December (Dec=10) are so named. There were no “official” months after December because winter was considered “un-important” in terms of harvesting reasons.

The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, set out to make the calendar more accurate by syncing it up with the actual lunar year, which is approximately 354 days long. Thus, Numa added on two months-January and February-after December to account for the extension of days to the existing calendar. Both of these new months were given 28 days each. Even numbers were considered bad luck at the time, so this did not sit well with Numa. Thus, he added a day to January, giving the year an odd-numbered 355 days. February remained with 28 days, and “unlucky”, because the Romans honored the dead and performed rites of purification in February (the word februare means “to purify”).

Around 45 B.C., Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to make a sun-based calendar, just like the Egyptian one. Caesar added an extra 10 days to the calendar and an extra day in February every four years. Now, the year averaged out to be 365.25 days, which is extremely close to the actual average of 365.2425 days.

Myth 2:

Again, back in the days of Julius Caesar, the months alternated 31 days, 30 days, etc, for a total of 366 days. Caesar then decided he wanted a month named after him. Therefore, he took the seventh month, named it July, and shoved the rest of the other months a notch down with the last month dropping off the end. At the time, the seventh month only had 30 days, but Caesar thought his month should be one of the largest months. So, he took a day from February and added it to July, giving February 29 days.

Then, when Augustus came along, he also wanted a month. Due to the fact that he could be “ahead” of Caesar, he chose the month following him. Again a month dropped off the end of the year, and he took another day from February to make his month have 31 days long, leaving February with only 28.

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