Did You Know? Italy
Have you ever wondered why our calendar feels so familiar? You can thank the Romans.
When Romulus founded Rome, he instituted the first calendar. This was designed primarily for farming and military life. It consisted of 10 months and 304 days, starting in March and ending in December. Winter months were excluded because no farming or military campaigns would take place during that period.
Numa Pompilius, Rome’s second king, added January and February to the calendar. He still based the calendar on lunar cycles. This calendar still only had 355 days. Romans considered even numbers unlucky and odd numbers lucky so all the months had either 29 or 31 days, excluding February, which had 28 days except in a leap year. February was considered unlucky and dedicated to the rites of the dead and to purification.
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar, replacing older systems with a more accurate solar calendar consisting of 365 days and a leap year every four years. Caesar needed to correct the misalignment between the lunar and solar calendars. 46 BC became known as the “Year of Confusion,” and it is the longest recorded year in history, consisting of 445 days. These extra days allowed for the Julian calendar to sync with the solar year.
The Julian calendar was used for over 1600 years until Pope Gregory III introduced minor adjustments and replaced it with the Gregorian Calendar, but the Roman influence remains. Even the names of many months have Roman origins, including January (Janus), March (Mars), and July, which was renamed to honor Julius Caesar himself.
Every time we check the date, we’re using a system rooted in Ancient Rome.
Did you know our modern calendar traces its roots back to Julius Caesar?
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