Happy New Year 2025!
December 2024 has passed on as we arrive another fresh beginning in our lives: New Year of 2025 has arrived. A new year is something almost everyone awaits for. It is a chance to reconcile not only with others but also with our thoughts as we anticipate for a fresher and joyous year ahead. From new year countdowns to the endless celebrations. What better reason to enjoy and celebrate with our friends and family. As the dawn of a new year takes birth we also get some inquisitive questions. I for one have quite a lot of them and here’s one of them with the answer below after some rigorous research. Hope you enjoy it.
The Question Surrounding The Month of December
Question: Why was December chosen as the last month or twelfth month of the year even though ‘decem’ in mathematics is considered as the number ten?
Well this is a question that has been in my mind since a very long time. I guess many of you too might be pondering about it now. Well then here’s the answer refined for a short and crisp understanding of this whole matter.
Initially December was never meant to be the twelfth month of the year. At least not when it was first introduced. It was meant to be the tenth and the final month of the year according to the Roman emperor Romulus the founder of Rome adopted in his early Roman calendar.
The ten months of the year were as follows Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Juniius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December—with all the months starting from Quintililis or present day July in chronological order from the number five to 10 of Latin numeracy.
This meant there were essentially only 304 days in the year. Yes I know what you are thinking now. There was no leap year in those days seeing that the month of January and February never existed in the early days of the Roman calendar.
Like they say “Rome was not built in a day”,similarly neither was the Roman calendar. With March being named after Mars the Roman God of War, March had a great responsibility of not only being the new year’s month but also the planting season and commencement of the military campaigns of the Roman emperors.
However, the first problems of this newly unearthed calendar took limelight as the unassigned 61 and a quarter days had no specific month due to the chilly days of winter being too unnecessary of a name.
Hence the Roman King Numa Pompilius in 713 BC made amends to this miscalculation and added January and February to the Roman calendar with New Year’s Day officially moved to January 1st as we know it today.
The month of January was dedicated to Janus the Roman God of doorways, opportunities and transitions and its fellow month February derived from the Latin word February meaning purification. Personally I feel these two months were quite similar in terms of their significance.
Hark! It’s not all jolly yet. The trouble is yet to be evaded as Numa makes a big mistake as he follows the Roman superstition of even numbers and ensured no month consisted of even numbers making making each month have 29 or 31 days .
This of course was a move that would shake the Roman calendar which now only had 355 days with Numa needing 57 days to allocate into two months. Hence he assigned January 29 days and February with 28 days. This decision ensured that just one month out of the twelve contained an even number of days. February was designated as the “unlucky” month associated with rituals honoring the dead.
However in the 40 BC era ,the Roman civic calendar had fallen three months out of sync with the solar calendar. Julius Caesar, advised by the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, adopted the Egyptian solar calendar, which defined the solar year as 365¼ days. A new calendar was created, each having either 30 or 31 days, while February was the exception, containing 28 days in common years and 29 days in leap years. To align the civic and solar calendars, Caesar made a major adjustment to the existing calendar in order to sure the problem was overruled with the Julius calendar in 46 BCE, extending that year to a whopping 445 days.
To our relief this calendar was overthrown and was replaced with the Georgian calendar marking the end of this this complete confusion. , Pope Gregory XIII introduced a reform in 1582, amending the calendar with the seasonal dates established in 325 CE, resulting in a 10-day adjustment. Since then, the Julian calendar has been replaced by the Gregorian calendar, with Great Britain making the transition in 1752.
However you might wonder how did March, April, May, June, July and August com into existence. As it happened as a part of the Julius Caesar overhaul many of the older names got replaced with the ones we know today.
This was a really enlightening case for me and I am sure you found the same too. Who knew there was quite a long array of chaos in the midst of the joyous month of December during the Roman empire.
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As I approach the end of this article, I have to credit the Indian Express, The Guardian and the Time and Date in assisting me in the creation of this post with their insightful findings. Please find the links below to know more about this case through these websites too.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19830,00.html
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Cover Image Credits: https://stock.adobe.com/in/search?k=%22happy+new+year+2025%22
Inside Image Credits: December Picture: https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/december-design
Numa Pomplilius Picture: https://www.personality-database.com/profile/231194/numa-pompilius-historical-figures-1st-millenium-bce-mbti-personality-type
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