friends, there is a question that has been haunting our mind for quite some time that question is - why february has 28 days why only february has 28 days other months have either 30 days or 31 days but why only february has 28 days have you ever thought about this ? even if you have thought, you might haven't got the correct answer so stay with the video till the end and in this video, along with this question, i am going to provide answers to many other questions as well like what is sidereal month? what is synodic month? why are there 12 months in a year ? what is a lunar cycle ? what is a lunar phase ? how did january became the first month of the year ?
answering all such questions we will understand our primary question which is why february has 28 days? i can say with a guarantee that this video is going to provide you so many informations that you have never got in a particular video so stay with me till the end first i will tell you what is a lunar cycle in order to understand the lunar cycle and lunar phase, you must first understand the position of earth, position of sun and position of moon so let me show you a demo which will make you understand how the position of sun, earth and moon decides the lunar phase so, for our demonstration, you should assume this to be the sun assume this to be earth and assume this to be the moon as you know that the earth revolves around the sun and this moon revolves around the earth. this a detailed concept.
i wont be able to make u understand the topic in that much detail right now for the time being just get this fact into the mind that the starting point of the lunar cycle is from the position when the moon is between the earth and the sun when moon is between the sun and the earth then you can see that this portion of the moon is visible from earth but the sunlight is falling on this part of the moon sunlight is falling on this part, but we have this side facing us so, at this time we are not able to see the moon at all.
now, moon will reach here as it revolves a bit of more of the moon will be visible and then the moon will reach here when earth will come in between the sun and the moon then at that time we can see that this entire part of the moon can be viewed from earth and the sunrays are also falling on this entire part of the moon so, we get to see the entire moon at this time and we call it the full moon phase as it revolves further, it reaches back to the starting point this is the new moon phase as we reach from here more and more portion of the moon becomes visible so this phase is called waxing phase the visibility of moon keeps on decreasing from this point onwards so, this phase is called waning phase of the moon so, in order to complete the entire cycle, moon takes 29 days 12 hours and 44 minutes approximately this is called the synodic month
so you have understood how does moon take 29 days 12 hours and 44 minutes to complete a cycle that approximately works out to 29.53 days now, till the time when the earth completes its revolution around the sun moon completes around 12 such cycles one cycle takes around 29.53 days so, how many days do we get in 12 such cycles this 354.3 days approximately is taken as 355 days in this 355 days, there were such 51 days where there was extreme cold and those 51 days were not at all favorable for harvesting so, people used to work in the remaining 304 days only and those 304 days only were included in the calendar so, in those 51 days if you would go out and ask someone what month is it they would say - there isn't any month right now because those 51 days were not included in the calendar at all so coming to the 304 days that were included in the calendar during those 304 days, there were 10 complete cycles of the moon thats why those 304 days were divided into 10 months always remember 10 months and not 12 months initially and the first month was march you can also make this out from the names September denotes 7, october denotes 8, november denotes 9 and December denotes 10 so, there were 10 months initially starting from march and ending with december so, coming to those 304 days that were divided into 10 months 6 months were allotted 30 days and the remaining 4 months were given 31 days but as the time progressed king at that time felt the need to include the remaining 51 days as well in the calendar whether you work or not so, those 51 days were also included in the calendar also,
the even numbers at that time were not considered auspicious people in the olden times used to be very superstitious so from those 6 months which had 30 days in a month 1 day from each month was taken out so, those 6 months were left with 29 days 4 months which had 31 days , an odd number, were left as it is. and one day from the months having 30 days was removed and were left with 29 days there are 355 days in a lunar year but 304 days only were included in the calendar so, those 51 days which were not included originally were also decided to be included and the 6 months which had even number of days also had one day removed from each one of them so 51 from there plus 6 days from here so they were left with 57 days to be included in the calendar these 57 days were divided into 2 months first month was named january and the second month was named february january was given 29 days and february was given 28 days and you must also keep in mind that when initially january and february were included in the calendar then january and february were the 11th and the 12th month they were not the first and the second month intially january was named after "god of janus" he is called the "god of beginning"
he has two faces - one facing the past and other facing the future so due to being named after the god of beginning - january was named the first month so, from then our calendar began starting from january, february, march and december, though denotes 10, became the 12th month so, now you had your calendar ready according to 355 days but with the time people felt the need to use solar year in the calendar there is a difference of approximately 10 days between the lunar and the solar year so, the new calendar had to include 10 more days so, they had to decide which month should be added with extra days months having 31 days were left untouched and the months not having 31 days only were decided to be added with extra days so, how many months were available in which days could be added barring february, which was supposed to be the shortest month 7 months were remaining those 7 months must be provided with the extra 10 days so, they added 2 days each to 3 months and 1 day each to 4 months
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