Why February has 28 days???

Thirty days have September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, Except February the only one having 28 days.

Ah!!!! Why so, well you would have come across this question many a time and would have ignored it. But have you ever thought why only February has 28 days and not March or April or any other month. There are many theories that why February has 28 days.

It all starts back from the Roman Empire In the very first calendars, created thousands of years ago by the ancient Romans, February didn't even existed because the Roman calendars were based on the moon's rotation instead of the Earth's! The very first calendar that was created by them had only ten months that added up to 304 days and were not enough for a full solar rotation which is completed by earth in 365 1/4 days. Roman king in order to have sufficient days for solar rotation added two new months to the calendar: January and February. The new version of the calendar now had 355 days, so he created a new month called "Mercedinus" that would come after February every other year in order to keep up with the solar rotation!
However, this was a very confusing system and, in 45 BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar got rid of Mercedinus completely. In order to solve the rotation problem, he took those extra ten days and placed them at the end of the months they already had some months now had 31 days, some had 30, and February, due to the loss of Mercedinus, would have 29. This system was called the "Julian calendar."

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII found that the Julian calendar do not consider that 1/4 of a day that is taken by the earth in the solar rotation. So he created the concept of the leap year in order to keep the solar calendar synchronized February would now have 28 days a year, except in years divisible by four, in which they would have 29. These changes became the "Gregorian calendar," which is the system we use to this day!

Well isn't that interesting.

By
Sonam

Institute of Design

Anand, Gujarat.