February has 28 Days
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| why there are 28 days in February |
Why February is Shortest Month
This is the fault of the Romans. Our modern calendar is vaguely based on its former one, which is confusing.
The 28 days of February date back to the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius. Before becoming king, the lunar calendar of Rome was only ten months old. It started in March and ended in December. At the time, Romulus, the first king of Rome, and his people found that the period between December and March mattered little because it had nothing to do with the harvest.
When Numa Pompilius took his reign, he decided to specify the calendar by aligning it with the 12 lunar cycles of the year. The new year of 355 days took two more months to make up for the lost time. So he added January and February at the end of the calendar.
February 28 days why
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| February 28 day in history |
Why February has Less Days
Because the Romans feel that even the numbers were unlucky, each month had a strange variety of days, alternating between twenty-nine and thirty-one.
However, to reach 355 days, one month had to be an even number. February was chosen to be the unlucky month with 28 days.
According to Slate, this choice may be due to the fact that the Romans honored the dead and performed cleansing rituals in February. In fact, the word February means "purify" in the dialect of the ancient Sabine tribe.
After a few years of use of the new 355-day calendar of Numa Pompilius, the seasons and the months began to get out of sync. In an attempt to realign the two, the Romans added a leap month of 27 days as needed. If Mercedonius was used, it started on February 24th.
Why February has 28 or 29 Days
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| why February has only 28 days |
Because the leap month was incoherent, that too had its obvious flaws. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to create a sun-based calendar similar to that used by the Egyptians. The Julian calendar has added just over 10 days each year, 30 or 31 days a month, except in February.
To account for 365.25 years of years, one day was added in February every four years, now called a "leap year". For most years, there were only 28 days left in February.
According to mental floss, for Rome to be on the right track with the Julian calendar, the year 46 BC was to last 445 days!
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