Travel In History - Why February Only Has 28 Days?

As this month is my Birthday month, I will post as many as possible relating about this special month.

Have you ever stop and wondered why February only has 28 days, except for every four years (leap years) and then it has 29 days? Why didn't it just have 30 days?

There are two legends for the answer to these questions.


Legend one has it that the Romans were the first ones to make up a calendar. Their calendar is very similar to the one we use today, except the first ones supposedly didn't even include the month of February. In fact, the first ones actually only included ten months which added up to 304 days.

This legend goes on to say, that King Numa Pompilius was the one who added the months of January and February. But even then the year only added up to 355 days and 12 lunar cycles. This made the solar year still short by 10 to 11 days. To help rectify the situation King Pompilius then added the month that was known as Mercedinus.

This new calendar was closer than the first one. But it still didn't work perfectly with the lunar cycle. Julius Caesar decided to ignore the calendar. He got rid of the month of Mercedinus. He also gave February 28 days except for every four years in which it would have twenty nine days. Thus, this calendar exactly made up of 365 and 1/4 days.

This is why the calendar we used today is often referred to as the Julian Calendar. It is basically the same calendar, with a few minor adjustments.


Legend two, states that the reason why February has only 28 days is because of jealousy. Some believe that Augustus Caesar was jealous because his birthday fell in the month of August (which only had 30 days back then) while Julius Caesar was born in July and his birth month had 31 days. So Augusta took one day from the month of February and added it on to August. That left February with only 28 days, except for leap year.

Interesting bit, was that there was a proposal to change our calendar once again. This proposed change if ever introduced would give us 13 months and each month would have 28 days. This would mean a year would equal 364 days and one extra day, two in leap year.

-Alvy-