Calendar why 12 months

The Romans started with a month calendar in B. The names Quintilis through December come from the Roman names for five, six, seven, eight, nine and This calendar left 60 or so days unaccounted for. The months Januarius and Februarius were later added to the end of the year to account for the 60 spare days. In 46 B. Ignoring the moon but keeping the existing 12 month's names, the year was divided into 12 months having 30 or 31 days, except Februarius at the end with 29 days.

Every fourth year, Februarius gained an extra day. Later, he decided to make Januarius the first month instead of Martius, making Februarius the second month, which explains why leap day is at such a funny point in the year.

After Julius' untimely death, the Romans renamed Quintilis in his honor, hence July. Similarly, Sextilis was renamed to honor Augustus, hence August. Augustus also moved a day from Februarius to Augustus so that it would have the same number of days as Julius. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt though labor, and do all thy work but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. Exodus Tyr was one of the sons of Odin, or Woden, the supreme deity after whom Wednesday was named.

February is the only month that is 28 days long in a common year and 29 days long in a leap year. The Gregorian calendar has days in a common year , and days in a leap year.

The ancestor of our modern calendar, the ancient Roman calendar , had only days. Our current Gregorian calendar and its predecessor, the Julian calendar , both have 12 months. The month names we use today are derived from the Roman calendar , which initially had only 10 months , with the calendar year starting in March Martius.

The Romans named some of the months after their position in the calendar year: September means the 7th month, October the 8th, November the 9th, and December the 10th month. However, when January and February were eventually added and the beginning of the calendar year was moved to January, the position of these months no longer corresponded with the original meaning of their names. Leap year is so named because the extra day causes any date after February in a leap year to "leap" over one day in the week and to occur two days later in the week than it did in the previous year, rather than just one day later as in a normal year.

The Julian calendar also established the order of the months and the days of the week as they exist in present-day calendars. Some authorities maintain that Augustus established the length of the months we use today. The Julian year was 11 min and 14 sec longer than the solar year. This discrepancy accumulated until by the vernal equinox see ECLIPTIC occurred 10 days early and church holidays did not occur in the appropriate seasons.

To prevent further displacement he instituted a calendar, known as the Gregorian calendar, that provided that century years divisible evenly by should be leap years and that all other century years should be common years.

Thus, was a leap year, but and were common years. The Gregorian calendar, or New Style calendar, was slowly adopted throughout Europe. It is used today throughout most of the Western world and in parts of Asia. When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Great Britain in , another correction of an day discrepancy was made; the day after September 2, , became September The British also adopted January 1 as the day when a new year begins.

The Soviet Union adopted the Gregorian calendar in , and Greece adopted it in for civil purposes, but many countries affiliated with the Greek church retain the Julian, or Old Style, calendar for the celebration of church feasts. The Gregorian calendar is also called the Christian calendar because it uses the birth of Jesus Christ as a starting date. Because the Gregorian calendar still entails months of unequal length, so that dates and days of the week vary through time, numerous proposals have been made for a more practical, reformed calendar.

Such proposals include a fixed calendar of 13 equal months and a universal calendar of 4 identical quarterly periods. As indicated, the Gregorian calendar is basically a Christian calendar. The official Christian church calendar is a table containing the holy days, saints' days, and festivals of the church, with the dates of the civil calendar on which they occur. These include the fixed feasts, such as Christmas, and the movable feasts, which depend on the date of Easter.

The most important early church calendar was compiled by Furius Dionisius Philocalus about After the Reformation, the German Lutheran church retained the Roman calendar, as did the Church of England and some other Anglican churches. The calendar of the Protestant Episcopal church retains only those festivals that have a scriptural origin. Several other calendars based on religious doctrine can also be described.