Why February? (opens in new tab)

In a bit of a break from heavy topics, we’re going to look at why February is so weird. The average month is 30.4 days, sensibly splitting into either 30 or 31. A seven-to-five distribution of 30-day months and 31-day months would get most years right, or an even split gets leap years. Why, then, does February jump the shark to 28? The weirdness doesn’t stop there, because in every year divisible by four February has 29 days: still unique among months. Yet this special treatment does not appl...