why does february only have 28 days?

Question

why oh why pray tell

Answer 1

"The shortest month of the year seems to have gone by in a flash. Why does February have only 28 days?

It's the Romans' fault. Our modern calendar is loosely based on their old, confusing one. Though records on the Roman calendar are sparse and sketchy, legend has it that Romulus, the first king of Rome, devised a 10-month lunar calendar that began at the spring equinox in March and ended with December. It is unclear whether there were any official months between December and March, but it's likely they were left off because the wintertime wasn't important for the harvest.

The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, decided to make the calendar more accurate by syncing it up with the actual lunar year—which is about 354 days long. Numa tacked on two months—January and February—after December to account for the new days.


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The new months each had 28 days. But that didn't sit well with Numa because even numbers were considered bad luck at the time. So, he added a day on to January, giving the year an odd-numbered 355 days. No one knows why February was left with 28 and remained an unlucky month. It may be related to the fact that Romans honored the dead and performed rites of purification in February. (The word februare means "to purify" in the dialect of the ancient Sabine tribe.)

The 355-day calendar couldn't stay in sync with the seasons because it didn't account for the amount of time it took for the Earth to orbit the sun. So, an extra "intercalary" month of 27 days was inserted after February 23 every couple of years or so to even things out. The pontiffs who were in charge of calendar upkeep didn't always add the extra month on schedule. (Some officials took advantage of the system to extend their time in office, for example.)

In around 45 B.C., Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to put aside the lunar origins of the Roman calendar and make it sun-based, like the Egyptian one. Caesar added 10 days to the calendar year and an extra day in February every four years. (The leap-year day was inserted after the 23rd, the same time as the old intercalary month.) Now, the year averaged out to 365.25 days, very close to the actual average length of a year: 365.2425 days (and even that varies).

Some have speculated that Caesar added a day to February when he reformed the calendar—making it 29 days long. The story goes that when the Senate renamed the month of Sextilis to honor the emperor Augustus, that day was subtracted from February and added to August in order to make it equal in number to July—the month named for Caesar. But this theory is now believed to be bunk; it's likely that Julius never even added a day to February. "

Answer 2

FEBRUARY 28 | FEBRUARY'S 28 DAYS

Why does February have only 28 days? You’d think with seven 31-day months, it would have been easy enough to give February 30, but calendars have never been easy. When the Romans first began working on the one that has become ours, February didn’t even exist.

The problem from the beginning was to reconcile the moon’s 29 1/2 day month with the sun’s 365 1/4 day year. The Romans’ first effort, supposedly devised by their founder, Romulus, included 10 months that added up to only 304 days. Clearly, Romulus had not conceptualized the problem.

The legend continues that King Numa Pompilius added January and February. The days now added up to 355, approximately the number in 12 lunar cycles but still 10 to 11 days short of a solar year. So Numa invented an extra month called Mercedinus that would be added to February every other year.

Numa’s calendar was getting closer to a system that would work, but its lingering attachment to the lunar cycle made it unwieldy. Julius Caesar decided to ignore the lunar cycle and get rid of Mercedinus by arranging the number of days in the twelve months to add up to exactly 365 1/4. February wound up with 29 days plus an extra every fourth year.

Julius Caesar’s calendar, which is referred to as the Julian calendar, is essentially the one we use today — with a few minor adjustments. It may have been Augustus, or maybe his admirers, who made the final adjustment to February. February 29 got shifted to August, which had been named in honor of Augustus, because August needed an extra day to be equal to July, which had been named in honor of Julius.

So that’s how February came to be only 28 days. Interestingly enough a recent proposal for calendar reform suggests that all months should have 28 days and that there should be 13 of them. This fixed calendar would add up to 364, requiring only one extra day— two in leap years — to make the calendar dead simple.

If math were all that mattered it might work, but our current calendar’s luni-solar roots are deeply embedded in our religious, cultural, and even business lives. The irregular civil calendar that governs our days remains our most enduring connection to these ancient roots.

Answer 3

All months have 28 days. Why do you pick on February?

February has only 28 days because of tradition, going back over 2000 years. February has had 28 days since 700 BC.

Answer 4

A broadly believed — yet probably misguided — tale has it that February is so short because of the fact the Romans borrowed an afternoon from it to function to August. August became initially a 30-day month called Sextilis, even yet it became renamed to honor the emperor Augustus Caesar, in basic terms as July had before been renamed to honor Julius Caesar. for sure, it does not do to have Gus's month be shorter than Julius's, subsequently the change. yet some historians say it is bunk. they are asserting February has consistently had 28 days, going returned to the 8th century BC, whilst a Roman king by potential of the call of Numa Pompilius accepted the elementary Roman calendar. until now Numa became on the interest the calendar coated purely ten months, March via December. December, as you are going to be able to comprehend, variety of interprets from Latin as "10th." July became initially called Quintilis, "5th," Sextilis became 6th, September became seventh, etc.

Answer 5

There are 28 days in February because February was the low month on the totem pole.
Originally, the Roman calendar had 12 months of 29 or 30 days, beginning in March, with an extra (intercalary) month thrown in every other year to get things back in sync with the seasons. Unfortunately this led to abuses, as officials added or dropped intercalary months to extend their time in office or to hasten elections.

So in about 45 BC, Julius Caesar, who by now had made himself dictator of Rome, established a 365-day calendar with leap years. For reasons unknown to me but which seemed good to him at the time, he decided that instead of having five months with 31 days and seven with thirty, he would only allow February to have 30 days in a leap year. He incidentally renamed the fifth month, Quintilis, after himself (Julius, or July).

Julius' adopted son and heir, Octavian, gained control of the state a few years after Julius' assassination in 44 BC. Octavian ruled so well that the Senate granted him the name of Augustus, and after his death he was formally deified by the Senate. As part of this, the month Sextilis following July was named August, just as Augustus had followed Julius as leader of the State. But since the month now named after the God Augustus had only 30 days, another day was taken from poor February and given to August.

It sounds silly, but that's the way it was.

Answer 6

Because it is Black History month and there is so little to tell!!

Every four years they are allowed another day to remember why they got 28 in the first place.

But seriously, based on the Roman calendar, they probably wanted spring to get here sooner!

Answer 7

A carryover problem from the Roman Calendar, MSN recently had a thing on it, just search the website.

Answer 8

because it has 28 days,of course!you really can't believe that if a month has an even number you'll get bad luck if you wee borned at the month.my mom is bornt at february,she didn't get bad luck at all.you really shouldn't believe fortune-tellers.they 're just using make-believe stuff to make us believe them.

Answer 9

It is to even out the difference between a year based on a lunar cyle and one based on a solar cycle.

Answer 10

In a leap year it has 29 days