February

Do you know why February is the shortest month of the year?

The Roman calendar started the year in March because that was the beginning of Spring. All the months alternated between 30 and 31 days.

Some of our months are still named after Roman gods and goddesses and from September to December the names are all variations of Roman numbers. September was from the word for 7, October was from 8, etc.

When Cesar Augustus became the emperor of Rome he didn’t want his month to have fewer days than the month named for Julius Cesar (July) so he took one day from the last month of the year and added it to his month, August.

That meant the last month, February, had only 29 days. It still has 29 days in leap years.

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Janet Ann Collins