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Thread: Why Leap-month/ year, What's the Rule??
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[quote=PIKADIREN,382359]The mistake went unnoticed until around 9BC when Julius's successor as Emperor - his great-nephew usually known now as Augustus Caesar - called for further changes. The Pontifices's error had gone unchecked for 36 years meaning that 12 extra days had been added instead of 9. To correct this Augustus ordered a halt in the leap years until the Earth had caught up with the calendar. In 8 BC the Senate also decided to honour the Emperor by renaming the month Sextilis as Augustus. In the past it was believed that the month lengths were then changed to their present form. Under this view, Sextilis had 30 days and the argument is that Augustus could not have fewer days than Julius so it was lengthened to 31. That would have lft three 31-day months in succession as September was also believed to be 31 days long since Julius Caesar's reforms. So September and November were shortened to 30 days and October and December lengthened to 31. That left one too manydays in theyear so February was returned to its traditional length of 28 days to compensate. But nowadays this theory has fallen out of favour and it is though that the month lengths had already been set in their modern form by Julius Caesar so August was a 31 day month already and no further change was needed when Augustus was honoured. It was quite a small honour; after his death in 14AD the Senate pronounced him a God. But we can say with certainty that from 8BC there were the twelve familiar months with the same number of days they have now. JANUARIUS, FEBRUARIUS, MARTIUS, APRILIS, MAIUS, JUNIUS, JULIUS, AUGUSTUS, SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER. or as they are more correctly written as Romans did not have a 'J' or a 'U' in their alphabet IANVARIVS, FEBRVARIVS, MARTIVS, APRILIS, MAIVS, IVNIVS, IVLIVS, AVGVSTVS, SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER. To get the calendar back on track, Augustus decreed that the first leap year after his reforms would be 8AD and they would occur every four years thereafter. And so they did. The calendar was to remain unchanged for more than one and half millennia and apart from a minor adjustment which began to be introduced in 1582, it remains substantially the same today. [/quote]
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