eli5 What is the concept of months? Why Feb has only 28 while some have 31? When did the concept of 365 days’ year come in people?
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Simple answer – months comes from the moon. Originally, a month ran from one new moon -when the moon is first seen after sunset – to the next. That happens a bit under 13 times in a year. Months were normally between 29 and 30 days.
The year is the time it takes the earth to to around the sun. This shows most clearly as the pattern of solstices – when the sun gets as far north or south as it goes each year – and equinoxes, when the days and nights are the same length. They used to keep them in sync by only starting the first month when they saw the spring equinox. So if it was time for month 1 but the equinox hadn’t come, then they repeated month 12. This pattern of not really knowing how long this year is going to be got tiresome, so they instead worked out the pattern of leap years and fixed length months we have now.
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