Why is February so Short?

ÖNB

Portrait of King Nova Pompilius who was king during the creation of the original calendar.

When it comes to months of the year it seems that February has drawn the short stick. It only has 28 days compared to the 30 and 31 days months. There is actually a reason behind this. When the ancient Romans were trying to create the calendar they first started out with a ten month system. This worked for awhile but then they realized that there was a lunar calendar with 12 phases, or in our case, months.  The Romans were confused and didn’t know whether to follow the ten month or 12 month system. 

King Pompilius, the creator of the calendar, decided to add on two more months to the year, hence January and February. The reason behind why there are less days in February is because the Romans thought that even numbers were unlucky. They decided that they needed to have as many 31 day months as possible. In order to do this they had to start taking days from other months to make some of them longer and have 31 days. They decided to take most from February and that’s why it’s so short. The reason why it was taken from February, nobody is quite sure but it’s most likely because at the time February was the last month of the year.