TechnoSociety

The Interesting History of August

So here we are, in the month of August. That means we’re over halfway through the summer. Often thought of as the hottest month of the year, August is also one of the newest months in our calendar. Or, I should say, one of the last to be added.

It all started about 2,040 years ago at a time when the Roman calendar was an absolute mess. The calendar featured 10 months, starting in March and ending in December. According to www.crowl.org, two of those months, apparently unnamed, months during the worse part of the winter. Because of the poor calculations used in creating the calendar, the months kept falling in different seasons. Later, when January and February were added to the end of the year, a month called Intercalaris, which varied in length, was occasionally used. What's worse, the pontifex maximus, head of the Roman religion, had become so corrupt that he would adjust the lengths of the years. He'd make them longer to keep some officials in office, or shorten them when he wanted others out.

Roman statesmen Julius Caesar reformed this abomination, and the changes took effect around 45 B.C. This new calendar, called the Julian calendar, began with January and ended in December. It ended up becoming the most popular calendar throughout Europe. After the creation of this new system, the Roman Senate renamed the month of Quintilis, the fifth month of the year at that time, to July in honor of Julius Caesar.

What does this have to do with August, you may ask? Well, when Caesar's grandnephew, Emperor Augustus, defeated Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, the Roman Senate decided he should also be honored by having a month named after him. So they renamed the sixth month of year, Sextillus, to August. But giving him a month was, apparently, not enough. Julius' month had 31 days, while August only had 30. Augustus couldn't be given an inferior month, could he?

So February, which was already an oddball month, having only 29 days and 30 on leap years, lost another day. When the Julian calendar was originated, each month, besides February, alternated evenly having 30 and 31 days. But adding this extra day to August caused there to be three long months in a row, so the lengths of the last four months were switched. This meant September and November would each have 30, along with April and June, leaving the rest with 31.

Interestingly, Julius and Augustus weren't the only rulers to have months named after them, they just happened to be the only ones whose names stuck. Among those whose changes didn't last were Claudius, who had May named after him, and Nero, who had April changed to Neronius.

The calendar Julius came up with lasted over a thousand years, as it was very accurate. In fact, it was only 11.5 minutes per year off from the solar calendar. But even this slight variation adds up over the years. By 1582, the calendar was off by 10 days. So Pope Gregory XIII ordered that the calendar be skipped ahead 10 days, and leap years wouldn't occur on century years (e.g. 1800, 1900) unless they were divisible by 400. This system, known as the Gregorian Calendar, is accurate enough to still be in use now. It is the one we use everyday and is only off from the solar calendar by 26 seconds per year.

Most of Europe went along with the calendar's ten-day advancement but not everyone. So, interestingly, up until the 18th century, the British calendar was 11 days behind that of other European countries, such as France and Germany. This was changed when the British Calendar Act of 1751 went into effect. This Act caused England to skip ahead 11 days.

In case you were wondering, the days that never occurred in England and its colonies were September 3 through 13, 1752.

This, and more information on the different calendars used in the history of the world can be found at infoplease.com.