Why does February have 28 days? The untold story of the shortest month of the year

Do you know why February is shorter than other months? Discover its origin, between the Roman calendar and imperial decisions.

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Lunar calendar vs. Julian calendar

It all begins in antiquity, when years in the Roman calendar started on March 1st. This lunar calendar divided a year into 10 months and about 61 days, for a total of 355 days normally. Every two years, Numa Pompilius, the legendary king of Rome, added an extra month to realign with the sun's cycle. A difficult calendar organization to maintain during civil war, which led Julius Caesar to reform it in 46 BC. 

Advised by his astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, Caesar then introduced the use of the Julian calendar (as you might have guessed, named after him), a calendar based on the solar year. Thus, the year has 365 days over 12 months and balances the seasons. 

But it takes an Earth year for the Earth to orbit the Sun, actually 365.25 days to be precise. A quarter day that matters and which the Julian calendar does not account for. As a result? A one-month shift every 120 years. 

And that's where the leap year comes in. Every four years, the year has 366 days simply because we need to make up for the quarter days forgotten in previous years.

There you go, you know everything about the importance of aligning the calendar with the sun, but why 28 or 29 days in February? 

A simple story of jealousy?

At the time of the reform, Caesar named (again) the month of July (Quintilis becomes Julius). But he didn't count on his successor, Emperor Augustus, who decided to name the month of August a few years later. Since July had 31 days and August only 30, Augustus would have decided to "take" one day from February to add to his month. Other sources claim that Caesar started hostilities by removing, "for pure pleasure," one day from February to add to Julius. This gave ideas to his successor, so to speak. Or perhaps these two extra days were added in honor of Caesar and Augustus, deliberately taken from February, the last month of the year at that time. 

Macrobius, a Latin author, contradicts these claims and explains that even before Caesar and Augustus, the month of February already consisted of 28 days. In fact, the other months had 29 or 31 days, but never 30 due to the Egyptians' superstition about even numbers. February would then have 28 because it is dedicated to Februa, the Roman feast of the purification of the souls of the dead during which sacrifices were made.

February, a singular month

Also know that February is the only month of the year during which you cannot observe a full moon, due to its short duration. 

Additionally, February 30th was used only once, in 1712, in Sweden. 

Finally, February is a particularly difficult month to get through, according to some sayings: "It's better to have a fox in the henhouse than a man in a shirt in February" or "February, the shortest of months, is the worst for everyone..."