# 28 Day MAJOR Contradiction!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/28-day-major-contradiction/553838
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [September 15, 2010, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/28-day-major-contradiction/553838 "2010-09-15T13:06:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GarryOwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GarryOwen)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2010, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/28-day-major-contradiction/553838/1 "2010-09-15T13:06:11Z")
You Sir, contradict yourself from the get-go. The following is the EXACT quote from your very own explanation. \> \> \> \> Numa also added two new months, January and February, to the end of the year. Since the Romans thought even numbers were unlucky, he made seven of the months 29 days long, and four months 31 days long.
But Numa needed one short, even-numbered month to make the number of days work out to 355. February got elected. It was the last month of the year (January didn’t become the first month until centuries later), it was in the middle of winter, and presumably, if there had to be an unlucky month, better to make it a short one. \< \< \< \< END QUOTE
You first state that King Numa “added” two months (thus giving the Calendar 12 months) and made the calendar 355 days. You then turn right around and state that January was “NOT ADDED” until “centuries” later. Please, make up your mind. WHICH is it??
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/28-day-major-contradiction/553838/2 "2010-09-15T13:14:24Z")
Garry, welcome to the boards. It’s customary to provide a link to the column in question when you comment in this forum so we don’t have to go searching for it.
But even without reading the whole column, I see your misunderstanding. Numa added January and February _to the end of the year_. It was centuries later not that January was added, but that it became _the beginning of the year._ That’s what was said in the article.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/28-day-major-contradiction/553838/3 "2010-09-15T13:15:52Z")
[Here is the column.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/442/how-come-february-has-only-28-days)
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### Author:  [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/28-day-major-contradiction/553838/4 "2010-09-15T18:11:01Z")
One might add that leap-year day wasn’t always February 29. It used to be observed by having February 24th twice. Well, actually, it was by having “the sixth day before the beginning of March” twice. Yes, the “sixth”: 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 1 – see? six days – because Romans didn’t count the way we do. That’s why “bissextile year” is an old expression for “leap year”, because it’s a year when you have the sixth, twice.
Before Gaius Julius Caesar’s reform, the problem of using a 355-day year was solved by inserting an extra month every few years, whenever the high priest happened to remember to do it. The extra month (if it had an English name, it would be “Intercalary”, or perhaps “Mercedony”) was stuck in after February 24th, the rest of February being skipped that year.