History of our calendar

Before today’s Gregorian calendar was adopted, the older Julian Calendar was used. It was admirably close to the actual length of the year, as it turns out, but the Julian calendar was not so perfect that it didn’t slowly shift off track over the following centuries. But, hundreds of years later, monks were the only ones with any free time for scholarly pursuits – and they were discouraged from thinking about the matter of "secular time" for any reason beyond figuring out when to observe Easter. In the Middle Ages, the study of the measure of time was first viewed as prying too deeply into God’s own affairs – and later thought of as a lowly, mechanical study, unworthy of serious contemplation.

As a result, it wasn’t until 1582, by which time Caesar’s calendar had drifted a full 10 days off course, that Pope Gregory XIII (1502 - 1585) finally reformed the Julian calendar. Ironically, by the time the Catholic church buckled under the weight of the scientific reasoning that pointed out the error, it had lost much of its power to implement the fix. Protestant tract writers responded to Gregory’s calendar by calling him the "Roman Antichrist" and claiming that its real purpose was to keep true Christians from worshiping on the correct days. The "new" calendar, as we know it today, was not adopted uniformly across Europe until well into the 18th century.

What is the origin of the names of the months?

A lot of languages, including English, use month names based on Latin. Their meaning is listed below. However, some languages (Czech and Polish, for example) use quite different names.

Month	Latin	Origin
January	Januarius	Named after the god Janus.
February	Februarius	Named after Februa, the purification festival.
March	Martius	Named after the god Mars.
April	Aprilis	Named either after the goddess Aphrodite or the Latin word aperire, to open.
May	Maius	Probably named after the goddess Maia.
June	Junius	Probably named after the goddess Juno.
July	Julius	Named after Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E. Prior to that time its name was Quintilis from the word quintus, fifth, because it was the 5th month in the old Roman calendar.
August	Augustus	Named after emperor Augustus in 8 B.C.E. Prior to that time the name was Sextilis from the word sextus, sixth, because it was the 6th month in the old Roman calendar.
September	September	From the word septem, seven, because it was the 7th month in the old Roman calendar.
October	October	From the word octo, eight, because it was the 8th month in the old Roman calendar.
November	November	From the word novem, nine, because it was the 9th month in the old Roman calendar.
December	December	From the word decem, ten, because it was the 10th month in the old Roman calendar.