Question

Why is February the shortest month with 28 days instead of December?

Answer 1

To meticulous persons such as ourselves, having the calendar run out in December and not pick up again until March probably seems like a pretty casual approach to timekeeping. However, we must realize that 3,000 years ago, not a helluva lot happened between December and March. The Romans at the time were an agricultural people, and the main purpose of the calendar was to govern the cycle of planting and harvesting.

Answer 2

You are in fact right - they made the last month shorter. It's that when the Gregorian calendar was first codified (maybe 'stabilised' is the better word), it started in March (i.e. spring, like much of the world) and ended in December (that, and not the Julius & Augustus Caesar story, is why Dec- = 10 but December is the tenth month). January and February were appended to the _end_ of the year, and February got the short shrift as far as number of days go. Switching January to the beginning of the year might have been a Christian idea to keep Jesus' supposed birthday near to the end/beginning of the year.. . Hope that helps!

Answer 3

Thinks its more to do with the moon cycles

Answer 4

No no no. It doesn't have anything to do with the Roman calendar. It messes up "New Year's Eve" and some people would be getting drunk on the wrong evening every four years due to leap year.

Answer 5

Yeah, it's to do with some roman dude Augustus, who took a day off February (had 29 + 30 in leap years ..yes, even back then) and added it to August. ..man he musta been vain huh?! :)

Answer 6

Well sometimes there are 29 days cos of the 4 quarters building up. But i don't know. We need NYE not 2 soon after Xmas? Or thats just how our calendar is?

Answer 7

February was nominally the last month of the Roman calendar, as the year originally began in March. At certain intervals Roman priests inserted an intercalary month, Mercedonius, after February to realign the year with the seasons.

Answer 8

because that would be too cliche.