Have you ever wondered why February has the shortest amount of days compared to all the regular 30-31 day months? It’s because of the Romans, To be specific it’s because of the Roman King, Numa Pompilius. He helped make the calendar we use today. The Romans used this calendar to know when to harvest or plant. They had to figure out when they should plant certain things, and what they should plant on certain months. This was very easy for them to understand and sort the harvesting and planting easier.

Back when he made it there were only 10 months. They were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. There were also 355 days in the lunar calendar, 12 lunar cycles, and lots of leap days. They had leap days so they could keep up with the seasons. In the beginning the King made seven of the calendar months 29 days long and four months 31 days long but it didn’t add up to 355. The romans believed in lucky and unlucky numbers and that’s why they wanted there to be 355 days in a year, they were very superstitious.

We have stuck to the roman calendar since day one. It’s still a relevant and still corresponds to how we celebrate holidays, and just about anything all these years later. People who plant, harvest, are interested in the moon phases, and nearly everyone else in the world use it.The king couldn’t figure out how to get all the months days to equal up to an even number so he just decided to make febuary the short month. He chose february because it was the last month of the year back then for them, and the easiest choice because of that.

There are many sayings and beliefs on why February is the shortest month, like the rumour that a King named Augustus Caesar stole a day from February to add to the month named after him- August. While some of these tales are just for pretend, or just thoughts, there is a million different reasons why February is the shortest month.