Months in a Calendar: Year, Weeks, Days

Months in a Calendar: A calendar is a perfect system for organising days. This is done by doing the nomenclature to periods like years, months, weeks and days. A calendar is a physical record of the events that happened in the past. Can we really remember the date of any day if we do not have a calendar? It is hard to remember, isn’t it? But, the calendar does it all for us. We follow the modern-day Gregorian calendar for our reference. Therefore, this article will cover every detailed information about months, the number of days in a month, and weeks in a calendar.

Months in a Calendar

A calendar is fully equipped with the proper arrangement of months, weeks, and marking about the special days. Nowadays, we rely on the calendar to see the dates, see which particular day will fall, mark the days of special events, etc.

Today we follow the modern-day Gregorian calendar for our reference. We have the Julian calendar, the Islamic calendar, the Hebrew calendar and the Indian based Saka calendar. Even though the Gregorian calendar is the commonly used calendar worldwide, other calendars are still in use in many parts of the world.

The months are a measure of time used with calendars corresponding to the time required by the moon to revolve once around the earth. For example, according to the Gregorian calendar and Julian calendar, a year is divided into \(12\) months.

A month can have \(28, 30\) and \(31\) months in a year. The exceptions of having \(29\) days in a month happen every four years once, known as a leap year.A year on earth has approximately \(365.2425\) days, but we consider an ordinary year has \(365\) days in simple terms. Usually, a week always starts on a specific day (such as Monday). However, the date of the day is different from one year to another. For example, the first day in January \(2020\) is Wednesday, while it was Friday in \(2021.\) Likewise, Christmas in \(2020\) was on Friday, while it is on Saturday in \(2021.\)

Name of the Months in a Calendar

According to the Gregorian calendar, the name of the months and the number of days are as follows:

Let’s quickly summarise. 

There are \(12\) months in a year. Out of \(12\) months in a year, the starting month of the year is January, and then the last month of the year is December. Therefore, the shortest month is February, having only \(28\) days in a tropical year or normal year, whereas \(29\) days in a leap year, \(7\) months have \(31\) days and \(4\) months have \(30\) days.

Number of Days in a Month

\(365\) days are not evenly divided into \(12\) months. Some months of the year have \(31\) days, some have \(30\) days, and only one month has \(28\) days and \(29\) days in a leap year. This uneven distribution of days goes long back in history.

Romans borrowed from the Greeks to develop the idea of a \(10-\)month calendar that left around  \(60\) days unaccounted. The ancient Romans started using a \(10-\)month calendar in \({\rm{738}}\,{\rm{BC,}}\) that included the following months: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. Januarius and Februarius were later added to the end of the year to account for the \(60\) extra days.

How to Memorise the Number of Days in a Month?

At times it becomes a necessity to remember the number of days in a month. Now, since the months are divided into \(30\) days or \(31\) days and only one month with \(28\) or \(29\) days, we can use the knuckle method to remember the number of days in a particular month.

The knuckle method is the easiest trick to remember the number of days in a month. You can make use of your knuckles to remember which month has \(31\) days. 

Here is what you have to do! 

Hold up your fists, as shown above in the figure. Count the months from left to right, using your knuckles and the space between the knuckles.

The months on the knuckles represent \(31\) days, whereas the space between two knuckles has \(30\) days except for February. This is because February has either \(28\) or \(29\) days in a leap year.

What is a Leap Year?

In an ordinary year, the number of days is \(365,\) in which February has \(28\) days, but every fourth year, there is an additional day in February, thus making the total days in that year equal to \(366\) days.

Therefore, every fourth year, February has \(29\) days, and that particular year is known as a leap year. In short, we can say leap years are those years where an extra day is added to the end of the shortest month, February. February \(29\) is commonly referred to as leap day. For example, \(1984, 1992, 2008, 2020, 2024\) etc. 

The earth takes \(365\) days, \(5\) hours, \(48\) minutes, and \(45\) seconds to circle once around the sun in a tropical year. So if we do not add an extra day in every fourth year, each calendar year will begin around 6 hours before the earth completes its one revolution around the sun. Leap days fix that error by giving the planet the additional time it needs to complete a full circle around the sun.

Tips to Remember

1. A year has \(12\) months.
2. January is the first month of the year, whereas December is the last month.
3. There are \(365\) days in a tropical or normal year, having \(28\) days in February.
4. There are \(366\) days in a leap year, has \(29\) days in February, also known as the leap day.
5. To remember which month has \(31\) or \(30\) days, make use of the knuckle method.
6. The knuckles represent \(31\) days, and the space between two knuckles means \(30\) days, except for February.

Solved Examples – Months in a Calendar

Q.1. Which is the seventh and tenth month of the year?
Ans: The seventh month of the year is July, and the tenth month is October.

Q.2. How many days are there in February in a leap year?
Ans: A leap year has \(366\) days. Thus, in a leap year, February month has \(29\) days.

Q.3. How many months have \(31\) days and \(30\) days in a year? Name them.
Ans: \(7\) months have \(31\) days in a year. They are January, March, May, July, August, October and December. \(4\) months have \(30\) days in a year. They are April, June, September and November.

Q.4. Which month comes in between June and August?
Ans: July comes in between June and August.

Q.5. How many months are there in a year? Name them.
Ans: According to the Gregorian calendar, there are \(12\) months in a year. They are January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.

Q.6. How many months do the ancient Romans have?
Ans: The ancient Romans started using a \(10-\)month calendar that included the following months: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. Januarius and Februarius were later added to the end of the year to account for the \(60\) extra days.

Summary

In this article, we learned about the months in a calendar. In addition to this, we realised there are \(12\) months in a year and how many days each month have. We now know that apart from the Gregorian calendar, the calendar which is used worldwide, the Indian Saka calendar, the Islamic calendar, and the Hebrew calendar exist and are used in some parts of the world.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – Months in a Calendar

Frequently asked questions related to months in a calendar is listed as follows:

Q.1. What is the \(13\) month calendar?
Ans: The calendar has \(13\) months with \(28\) days each and each month exactly divided into \(4\) weeks.

Q.2. What is the \({\rm{12th}}\) month?
Ans: The \({\rm{12th}}\) month of the year is December.

Q.3. Define month in a calendar.
Ans: The months in a calendar can be defined as the measure of time used by the moon to revolve once around the earth. A Gregorian calendar has \(12\) months.

Q.4. Why do some months have \(31, 30, 29\) or \(28\) days?
Ans: The Gregorian calendar was a modification of the Julian calendar, which was a modification of the Roman calendar. The Romans divided the days of the month based on the concept of the revolution of the moon once around the earth.

Q.5. Is the year \(2021\) is a leap year?
Ans: No, \(2021\) is not a leap year, as \(2021\) is not divisible by \(4.\) The last leap year was \(2020,\) and the next coming leap year will be \(2024.\)

Q.6. How many months have \(31\,30\,29\) or \(28\) days?
Ans: According to the Gregorian calendar, \(7\) months have \(31\) days, \(4\) months have \(30\) days, only \(1\) month have \(28\) days in a normal year and \(29\) days in a leap year.

We hope this detailed article on months in a calendar helped you in your studies. If you have any doubts or queries, you can reach out to us through the comment section and we will help you at the earliest.