The Month of February
February is the second month of the year and the shortest. Usually, this month has only 28 days. But every fourth year – called leap year – an extra day is added. This keeps the calendar in time with the seasons. If you were born on February 29, you have a real birthday only once every four years.
The Roman calendar was designed to reflect the length of the lunar months. A calendar year lasted 355 days, which is the approximate duration of 12 lunar months. A straightforward method of dividing this time span into 12 calendar months would have been to have some months with 29 days and some with 30 days. However, since even numbers were considered unlucky in ancient Rome, we ended up with a calendar that has seven months with 29 days and four months with 31 days instead. This left February, the last month of the year, with the remaining 28 days.
With its even number of days, the Romans considered February an unlucky month, and it was reserved for rituals honoring the dead.
The word February comes from the Latin word februare, which means “to purify” or “to make clean”.
February is usually cold and stormy in the northern half of the world and warm and sunny in the south.
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