Mystery of the Calendar

                                   Mystery of the Calendar

The Roman year consisted of twelve months, each of which had its own duration. Later, the Romans noticed that the lunar year was shorter than the tropical (solar) one, and this could later lead to the fact that the calendar and real seasons could not coincide. To smooth out such inconsistency, an additional month was introduced every two years, which was called marcedony. The peculiarity was that in Marcedonia they did not set a clear number of days, it was regulated by the Roman pontiffs, who appointed as many days as they needed. At the same time, they were not looking at the Moon or the Sun, but at their wallet. By the time of the Julian reform, it had reached the point that the Roman calendar had moved forward 90 days with respect to the change of seasons. It didn't take much ingenuity to understand that an error had crept into the calendar, especially when walking around august snowdrifts.

    Inequality of months:

We know that there are 365 (366) days in the calendar, but the months are divided differently: January 31 February 28 (29) March 31 April 30 May 31 June 30 July 31 August 31 September 30 October 31 November 30 December 31

but if you think about it, it may turn out like this: January 31 February 29 (30) March 31 April 30 May 31 June 30 July 31 August 30 September 31 October 30 November 31 December 30

          But  why do we live on a different calendar?-because spring comes before the 30-day February ends, and February has 28 days.

     A month is about the time taken by the Moon to go once around the Earth. The Moon really takes twenty-nineand a half days to go around the Earth. So the moon-months are not the same as our months. But most people just dividethe year (365 days) into twelve parts:

365 | 12

360 30

5

There are five days left, or in a leap-year (366 days)there are six days left.

So, we ought to have' in leap-years six months of thirtydays each and six months of thirty one days each.Why don't we have the calendar which we ought to have?

At first the calendar was very much the same as the one we have shown. But then it was changed. Why? We'll tell you the reason. It was a very silly reason.

The names of the months were taken from the Roman names. It was Julius Caesar, the Roman ruler, who dividedthe year into six months of thirty one days and six of thirty.

      Every other month had thirty days just as we have shown it.The fifth month was named by Julius Caesar after himself.And so it has his name, July, even now. You see, July is the same as Juli-us -- Julius' month.

Now the Roman ruler who came after Caesar, was calledAugustus. He said, "One of the months is named after Julius,why is there no month named after me? The fifth month isnamed after him, so I'll have the sixth month named after me."

So the sixth month was called August after Augustus. (Theyhad been called just the fifth and the sixth month before.)

Then Augustus saw that Julius' month had thirty one days,and his month only thirty. So he took a day from February andput it into his month August. So, February got 28-29 days and August thirty-one. Then the number of days in September, October, November and December was changed, so as to try to get the 30\31 arrangement right again. That was how Augustus undid all the nice, simple10 arrangements of Julius Caesar.

                                             Literature

1. Валькирия: [Электронный ресурс] - Режим доступа: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki

2. История календаря - автор Евгений Коваленко [Электронный ресурс] - Режим доступа: http://arbuz.uz/u_calendar_3.html

3. История становления английского языка: [Электронный ресурс] - Режим доступа: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/