(darkmoon1968/Pixabay)
In the last days of their monarchy, around the 6th century BC, the Romans adopted a calendar based on the phase changes of the Moon, with 355 days divided into 12 months. The year started in March and ended in January, and the months had 29 or 30 days. February, the eleventh month, was considered inauspicious and was left with only 28 days. But, in 46 BC, under the rule of Julius Caesar, there was a significant change: the calendar started to be based on the solar cycle. The months then all changed to 30 or 31 days, adding up to 365 in the span of a year. During this same period, the leap year was instituted – a change inspired by the Egyptian calendar – with an additional day every four years. In 44 BC, in the second year of the Julian calendar, the Senate decided to honor the emperor and proposed that the month Quintilis, with 31 days, be renamed Julius (July).
Three decades later, in 8 BC, the name of the eighth month, Sextilis, was changed to Augustus (August), in honor of the then Emperor Caesar Augustus. As one Caesar could not have more days than the other, August – which originally had 30 days – gained one more, removed from February, which had 28. days and so on. Much later, already in the 16th century, Pope Gregory 13 inaugurated a new calendar, correcting some distortions of the Roman system. But the Gregorian calendar, adopted until today by the Western Christian world, did not change the number of days in February.