An interesting day on February 29th. For three years he has not been on the calendar, and then he appears. And the month of February is also very different from the rest of the months of the year. We will try to figure out why this happened.

This story begins in the days of the Roman Republic. In the 1st century BC, the dictator Guy Julius Caesar decided to conduct a calendar reform. The original Roman calendar was ten months old. The year began in March, which was named after the god Mars. The first four months had names, the rest only a serial number. So the month following June (named after the goddess Juno) was named Quintilis – the fifth, then Sextilis – the sixth and so until December – the tenth. During the time of the Roman king Numa Pompilius, two months were added to the calendar: January, named after the god Janus, and February, named from the verb februare – to purify, make an atoning sacrifice at the end of the year. These months were delivered after December. Already at that moment in February, as the last month of the year, only 28 days were left.
In order to understand where Caesar’s calendar reform comes from, we’ll be transported to ancient Egypt. This state has moved from the lunar calendar to the solar calendar. The solar year cycle was based on the fact that the year is 365 days and 6 hours. Therefore, for four years it turned out an extra day, so leap years appeared. Once every four years, the year was 366 days. On the advice of the Egyptian astronomer Sozigen Julius Caesar introduces this calendar in the Roman Republic. As military Caesar introduces the rule of distributing days by month, so the odd months get 31 days, and the even 30 days. February, as the last month of the year, gets 29 days; in leap years, the day increased, and it became 30 days. In memory of the calendar reform, they decided to name the fifth month of the year in honor of Guy Julius Caesar as July, lasting 31 days. This is an important point to help understand why February is the smallest month.

When Caesar’s great-nephew Octavian Augustus becomes emperor of the Roman Empire, he decides to perpetuate his name not only in the annals of history, but also in the calendar. So after July, the month of August appears, named after the emperor. True, a problem arises, in the month of August at that moment there were 30 days, because it is an even month. The first emperor could not allow for a month named after him to have fewer days than his grandfather. Therefore, they add one day to the month of August, and take it away from February. So it turns out the shortest month with 28 days in a normal year and from 29 – in a leap year.

The Julian calendar, created during the reign of Guy Julius Caesar, was used in Russia until 1918, until it was replaced by the Gregorian calendar. Where does another way of reckoning come from? In the XVI century, it turned out that the annual cycle does not consist of 365 days and 6 hours, but a little less, so the Gregorian calendar appeared. But this is a completely different story.

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