WHAT'S IN A NAME?

The 12 month calendar which currently serves as the world standard of time is called the Gregorian Calendar, named for Pope Gregory XIIIth who "revised" the previous Julian calendar (named for Julius Caesar). October 5, 1582 was followed by October 16th, 1582, correcting for the Julian calendar which had slipped behind the Spring Equinox by 10 days. Aside from an improved leap year calculation, Pope Gregory's calendar has no structural differences from Julius Caesar's calendar.

The Julian calendar, (instituted in 46-45 B.C.) was preceded by the calendar of the Roman Empire, which was originally a calendar of only 10 months. Their year originally started in March (Martius) and the 2 winter months before then were known as "dead time" - they were unnamed. On the original Roman count, September (which literally means 7) was the 7th month, October (which means 8 - like octagon) was the 8th month, November (9) was the ninth, and December (10) was the tenth and last month.

When the Romans eventually named the unnamed months, they became January and February (Januarius and Februarius) however they were at the end of the year. 153 B.C the Romans decided that January 1 would be the beginning of the year, and they did not bother to adjust the rest of the names of the months - hence we are left with these illogical names where the 12th month of our year is named for the 10th month, etc. We have been following this calendar from the Roman Empire for almost 2200 years!

As for the rest of the names of the months: January is derived from the God of the doorway; February is an obscure word referring to a divinatory rite using animal entrails; Mars refers to the planet and god of war; April and May refer to goddesses of the spring; June to the wife of Jupiter. July is named after Julius Caesar and August is named after his nephew Augustus Caesar.

The word "calendar" itself is derived from a the Latin word calendarium meaning "account book," the first day of every Roman month being "calends" or the date of payment of debts. This confirms the depths of the societal programming that "time is money."