Position:Home>History> Who decided which months should have a certain amount of days?

Yes, we use the Gregorian calendar, but no one named Gregory determined the number of days for each month!. In the old Roman calendar, March, May, Quintilis (later July) and October had 31 days each; February usually had 28 (but fewer, not more, in leap year); and all the others had 29 In 46 B!. C!.,Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, giving the months their present lengths and removing the extra month that had previously been inserted between February and March in leap years to keep the calendar in sync with the sun!. (As a child, I read that Caesar also lengthened Quintllis by taking a day from February and then renemed the month for himself, and that Augustus later did the same to Sextilis/August; but it seems that Quintilis had always had 31 days, that Julius, not Augustus, lengthened Sextilis, and that the Romans themselves renamed those months in honor of the Caesars!.) Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Partial answer:

At first, all months were 30 days!.

July named after Julius Ceasar, had 31 days!. August was named by Augustus Ceasar, who - so he could have a month as long as Julius Ceasar - made his month 31 days long!.

Whenever a month was lengthened from it's original 30 days, the day was taken from February!.

This is 3/4 of an answer - It explains all but four months that are 31 days!.



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We use the Gregorian or Christian calendar!.!.!. all of the info is here:

http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Gregorian_c!.!.!.

Edit: I know that it's related to the cycles of the moon!. "The month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which is approximately as long as some natural period related to the motion of the Moon" wiki - "month"

here's another best answer that's helpful:
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Its a long story !.!.!. one month is allotted 28 days and that is the month of February, during leaft year (every 4-years) a day is added to it that makes it 29!. Logically all of them have 28 days!.

The Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, began on 1st January, with the length of months alternating between 31 and 30 days - except for February, which had 30 days in a leap year and 29 days otherwise!. (This replaced an earlier Roman calendar which had 10 months of alternating 30 and 31 days, followed by a "winter gap", the length of which varied from year to year!. The last year of this old calendar actually had 445 days!.)

Complications to the Julian system began when the Senate wanted to name a month after the then Emperor Augustus!. To avoid slighting the Emperor, the month named for Augustus must be as long as the month named for Julius, and should follow it directly!. And so July and August became 31 days each, and February surrendered an extra day!. (To avoid 3 successive 31 day months, September was shortened to 30 days, October lengthened to 31, and so on!.)

The Romans initially introduced leap years every 3 years, but by about 9 BC it was seen that the calendar was getting out of step with the solstices, so leap years were abandoned altogether, until about AD 4 or 8, when leap years were re-introduced as every 4 years!. Even this was not completely accurate, giving an error of 45 minutes in 4 years, or 3 days in 400 years!. In time, this miscalculation became quite noticeable!.

Around 150 AD Christian churches decided to take over the pagan festival of Saturnalia (the winter solstice) and celebrate 25th December as Christ's birthday!. Later, when the cult of the Virgin Mary became popular, it was thought that the Christian era should start on the day of Christ's conception, that is, 9 months earlier on 25th March, which they named Ladyday!. The year began on 25th March and ended on the following 24th March!.

All moveable feasts in the church calendar relate to Easter!. In turn, gospel tradition related Easter to the Jewish festival of Passover, which in turn was related to the spring equinox, the phase of the moon and the celebration of the Sabbath!. Over the centuries, by following the Julian calendar, the Easter festival was slowly but surely moving away from the spring equinox towards the summer solstice!. The new system adopted by Pope Gregory in the 16th century, specified a calendar with a year length of 365 days, 5 hours, 40 minutes, 20 seconds!. Therefore 3 days had to be dropped every 400 years!. So those years which were divisible by 100 would only be leap years if they were divisible by 400!. To correct errors which had built up over centuries, Pope Gregory declared that Thursday 4th October 1582 in the Julian Calendar should be immediately followed by Friday 15th October in the Gregorian Calendar!.

Scotland and most Roman Catholic countries of Europe adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1582 or soon after!. Most Protestant countries however ignored this Papal decision for another 200 years!. In England, they still followed the old Julian Calendar (year ending 24th March) until 1751!. Lord Chesterfield's Act of 1751/2 stated that the year 1752 would begin on 1st January and end on the following 31 December!. In addition, in 1752 only, the calendar was adjusted to omit 11 days (2nd September was followed by 14th September) to bring their "new" (Gregorian) calendar back in line with most of the rest of Europe!.


Orthodox countries (those following allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople) were even slower to change!. Russia, for example, did not convert to the new calendar until after the Russian Revolution!. An interesting consequence of this was that when London hosted the 1908 Olympic Games, the Russian team arrived 12 days late because of it! Turkey was the last major European country to adopt the Gregorian Calendar - on 1st January 1927!.

In England, the "quarter days" (for quarterly events like the Quarter Court sessions) were Lady Day (March 25) when the legal year started, St John the Baptist Day (Midsummer Day, June 24), Michaelmas (September 29) and Christmas (December 25)!. These were close to the equinoxes and solstices and were regarded as the beginning of the dates of the seasons!. In the City of London, when the calendar changed, bankers refused to pay their taxes 11 days early, and so would not pay before 5th April, which still remains the date of the end of the fiscal year!.

When reading English dates prior to 1752, regard the years with care!. Was the date written by someone from that time!? - in which case remember the year ran from March to March!. However if the date was written by a modern researcher, did they understand the calendar in place at the time - and what system were they using when they described a date such as 2nd January 1701!? To avoid confusion the convention is to write that date as 2nd January 1701/2 which uniquely identifies the year!. (1701 in this case being the year according to the old Julian Calendar, and 1702 according to the "new" Gregorian Calendar!.)Www@QuestionHome@Com

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