In Like a Lion Already?
By Veronica MacDonald Ditko
An Accidental Anthropologist
And so it is March. What? You don’t believe me? Yes it is. It really is. February went fast, right?
Being an inquiring anthropologist I wonder why February is not just short, but also a good two to three days shorter than other months. There are many blogs about this topic and I am also blogging about this, so don’t take my words as the absolute truth.
But the general consensus is that the Romans did it. Yes, they built wonderful roads. Yes they conquered many lands. But another lasting remnant of the Ancient Romans, specifically a king called Numa Pompilius, is a 10-month calendar he created around 700 B.C.
The calendar was meant to keep track of the planting and harvesting cycles, however another calendar, the lunar calendar, had 355 days with 12 lunar cycles. To keep the two calendars somewhat compatible, Pompilius apparently added two months to the end of the year, which were January and February. And since even numbers were considered unlucky, January got 31 days, and February got – ooops – 29 to add up to 355 days.
A rumor is also floating out there that Augustus Caesar added two days to August because it was his namesake. He was jealous that Julius Caesar’s month, July, had 31 days. So August needed 31 too. That meant February got shortchanged.
We can actually thank Julius Caesar for creating the 365-day calendar used by most of the world today.
Leap year (February 29), which is every four years, is an entirely different topic altogether. It has to do with how long it takes the Earth to get around the Sun. I’m not even going to go there.
All I really care about is that this year, March 20, is the first day of spring. So that means spring will come. Sometime. Not sure when. But it will, promise!
Veronica MacDonald Ditko is originally from the Jersey Shore, but married and settled in northern New Jersey. Her journalism career started a decade ago after studying Psychology and Anthropology in Massachusetts. She has written for several newspapers and magazines including The Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Springfield Union News and Sunday Republican, Happi, Chemical Week, The Hawthorne Press, The Jewish Standard, Suite101.com and more.