Hey February! Why so short?

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Have you ever wondered why February is the shortest month of the year? If you take a look at your calendar, you’ll notice that February only has 28 days while the other months have 30 or 31 days.

When was the calendar invented?

Believe it or not, the calendar we know today is actually based on the ancient Roman calendar. It was invented in the 8th century BC by a king named Numa Pompilius.

Back then, Rome was a growing civilization and on a major inventing spree!

At left is a picture of king Numa Pompilius, the emperor of Rome.

Numa Pompilius/Digital Collections, The New York Public Library/The New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox, and Tilden Foundation

What's up with Leap Day? Read about February 29 — the date that only comes around every four years

Was it true there was a different calendar?



A picture of a Roman calendar found in the ruins of Nero's villa at Antium. If you look close, you may see the months listed along the top of the picture. Image licensed Public Domain via Wikimedia

There’s a rumour that the reason why February is the shortest month of the year is because another king named Augustus Caesar stole a day from February to add to the month named after him — August. However, the real reason February is shorter begins with the fact that the first calendar was only 10 months long. It’s true!

Why was the calendar only 10 months long?



A field of barley — a crop favourite of Ancient Rome. Photo by michieru licensed CC BY 2.0

Farming was a big deal in ancient Rome. Roman farmers harvested wheat, spelt and barley which were basically all the ingredients to make their favourite food, bread! Farming was so important to Romans that King Pompilius didn’t even bother to name the time in between harvests. The calendar year began in March and ended in December. Everything else was just called winter!



An agenda with pages open on the months of January and February. Image courtesy of Pixabay

However, with the calendar only being 10 months long, it began to fall out of sync with the Lunar calendar which tracked the phases of the moon. The Lunar calendar had 355 days a year and 12 lunar cycles (or months) while the Roman calendar only accounted for 10.

Confused yet?

So were the Romans! They didn’t know whether to follow the 12-month Lunar calendar or the new 10-month calendar invented by King Pompilius! To solve this problem, the king added two more months after December and called them January and February.

So that was it? The problem was solved?



These are a bunch of colourful, random numbers. Photo by Jurgen Appelo licensed CC BY 2.0

Well, not really. This caused more problems because ancient Romans thought that even numbers (2,4,6,8, etc.) were unlucky! Because of this King Pompilius made the months either 29 or 31 days long but the math still didn’t add up to match the Lunar Calendar. One month had to be an even number so poor February drew the unlucky straw with 28 days! Probably just because it was the last month of the year. Yes, you read that correct! In those days the start of the new year was March 1st, not January 1st like we have now.

Much later, Julius Caesar rearranged the calendar one more time, finally giving it the 365 days we know today and the rest is history! February still maintained its short length, but with all the great things that happen in February, like Valentines Day and Family Day, it’s pretty lucky after all!

How did the days of the week get their names? Find out!