The Trouble With February
THE TROUBLE WITH FEBRUARY
February has long been at the centre of attempts to create a workable calendar. The fact it has 28 days can be traced back to ancient Rome. The Roman’s first lunar calendar was just 10 months long and did not even have a January or February, because the Romans didn’t think the period was important because it had nothing to do with harvesting. Eventually, Rome’s first king, Numa Pompilius (753–673 BC), decided to create a new calendar based on lunar cycles. This calendar was based on a 355 day year and introduced two new additional months – January and February. Even numbers were considered unlucky but if the new calendar was to work then one month would have to have an even number of days. February was chosen and given 28 days, all the rest had 29 or 31. The new calendar was constantly undermined by priests who had the power to remove a month from the calendar year. If they didn’t like someone elected to office the priests would shorten his term by leaving a month out!
To sort out the mess, in 45BC, Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to create a sun-based calendar similar to the one the Egyptians used. The Julian Calendar added a little more than 10 days to each year, making each month 30 or 31 days long, except for February left with 28 days. However every four years, now known as a ‘leap year’, February was given an extra day. Caesar was delighted. Not only was the new calendar named after him, but he chose to name July after himself as well. Not to be outdone, on becoming emperor Augustus Caesar named August.
By the 16th century, because the earth does not travel around the sun in exactly 365.25 days, Caesar’s calendar got way out of sync. To solve the problem, Pope Gregory VIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582. This calendar got things in sync again but controversially involved moving dates up 10 days.
In 1752 there was widespread opposition to plans to bring our calendar in line with that of Europe. Ordinary people were alarmed by the changes to festivals, Saints days, birthdays and the dates of wage payments and trading contracts. Some came to the conclusion that the government were stealing 11 days from their lives. There followed the so called ‘Calendar Riots’ with popular cries of ‘Give us our eleven days back’ by protesters.
An Act of Parliament implemented calendar reform on Wednesday 2nd September, 1752, with the next day declared to be Thursday September 14th. The new calendar meant that New Year’s Day, previously on March 25th, now fell on January 1st. Interestingly, to avoid losing 11 days of tax revenue, the official start of the new tax year was changed to 5th April. A further change, prompted by a small leap year issue, was made in 1800, moving the date to 6th April where it remains today.
Not everyone was unhappy about the introduction of the new Gregorian calendar. According to one tale, a certain William Willett, keen on a joke, wagered that he could dance non-stop for 12 days and 12 nights. On the evening of September 2nd 1752, he started to jig around the village and continued all through the night. The next morning, September 14th by the new calendar, he stopped dancing and claimed his bets!