Do you know that the name of the months “July” and “August” is due to the arrogance of the politician Julius Caesar and the emperor Caesar Augustus?

More than 2000 years ago (46 BC), Julius Caesar decided to change the Roman calendar (containing 10 months) to Julian calendar (containing 12 months).

One of its peculiarities is that the year started in March instead of January and the names of these months were: “Ianuarius” (January), Februarius (February), Martius (March), Aprilis (April), Maius (May), Iunius (June), Quintilis (July), Sextilis (August), September, October, November and December.

Because of Julius Caesar being born on 13th of “Quintilis”, Marco Antonio ordered changing the name of this month to July to flatter Caesar’s vanity.

When Julius Caesar died, his successor was Caesar Augustus: founder of Roman Empire and, at the same time, its first emperor.

So, it is said that when Augustus became emperor, he decided to change the name of the month of “Sextilis” into “August”. It was then that, the first emperor did not feel inferior and changed the sixth month of the calendar. As this month had only 30 days, Augustus and his vanity, could not stand that the month -dedicated to his person- had one day less. So, without thinking twice, Augustus took one day off the month of February. And it is only for vanity that the month of February only has twenty eight days (29 leap-year), and the reason why July and August, in spite of being the two following months have 31 days.

Did you know it?

Source: www.wikipedia.org