And why is he only sometimes 29? These questions that always haunt our minds at this time of year, deserve to be given due attention because the subject is not very easy to explain at first. It is not that it is very complex either, but it is important because it connects us with the evolution of the notions of time and the passage of days, weeks, months and years that were conceived in past times, in which there were no clocks, telescopes or sophisticated GPS or satellite location systems. In this note we tell you the reason for Leap Years and the history of the names of the months that today govern our current calendar.
The names of the months of the current Gregorian calendar with which we divide the space in time that corresponds to twelve months, have their origin in the ancient Roman calendar. In the time before the emperor Julius Caesar in ancient Rome, the calendar consisted of ten months, the year began with the month of March and ended with the month of December.
The first four months of the year were named as follows:
- Martius:in honor of Mars with 31 days
- Aprilis:in honor of Aphrodite with 30 days
- Maius:in honor of Maya with 31 days
- Iunius:in honor of Juno with 30 days
The following months all had names that corresponded to their numerical order within the calendar. Thus Quintilis was the fifth month and consisted of 31 days, Sextilis was the sixth month and had 30 days, September had 30 days and was the seventh month, October was the eighth month and had 31 days, November was the name given to it. gave the ninth month with 30 days and finally December was the tenth month with 30 days as well.
The total sum of all these ten months was 304 days, the remaining 61 days that we know in today's calendar were the winter days that were not considered winter days. importance because they were not used to sow or harvest in an economy that was sustained mainly by agricultural production.
King Numa Pompilius decided to carry out a reform of the calendar, adding a month at the beginning of the almanac and one at the end. This reform established a year of 12 months, as we know it today. The modification created a new calendar that corresponded to a year that was in conjunction with the lunar cycle.
In ancient Rome, even numbers were considered unlucky numbers by the Romans, they were said to be companions of bad fortune, so in the year 713 before Christ the same Numa Pompilius, removed one day from the 30 months, leaving the new organization of the year as follows:
- Ianuarius (January, 28 +1 =29 days), in honor of Janus
- Martius (31 days)
- April (29 days)
- May (31 days)
- Iunius (29 days)
- Quintilis (31 days)
- Sextilis (29 days)
- September (29 days)
- October (31 days)
- November (29 days)
- December (29 days)
- Februarius (February , 28 days), month of purification (February)
It was also decided to add one more day to January, which originally had 28 days to remove it from its status as having bad fortune, so that finally only Februarius remained as the only month with an even number of days. The result was a lunar calendar of 354-355 days that was not compatible with the solar calendar of 365 days, a situation that made it inevitable to add certain days to synchronize it with the seasons.
Around 450 BC, the Republican calendar was established in which one more month was added every two years, the new month was called "Mercedonius", the month in which the mercenaries charged for their services. The drawback was that this new month had only 27 days and every time it was included in the calendar, it left February with only 23 or 24 days. At this time it was also decided to adjust the calendar year to the solar year of 366 days and the original order was modified because February went from occupying the last place in the calendar to occupying the second
In 45 BC, Julius Caesar eliminated the month of the mercenaries and imposed the Julian calendar, a calendar in which the months consisted of the same number of days as the months that we know today. Julius Caesar himself decided that every four years there would be what is known as a leap year, a year to which a day would be added. This new day would be included in the month of February because it was the shortest and it was also the day considered unlucky. It is in this way that, through many variations and somewhat confusing modifications, the month of February It is today a month that every four years has 29 days.