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ROMAN CALENDAR (origin of the months name)

JANUARY
January is the sacred month of  Janus, the Roman god who was guardian of portals and patron of beginnings and endings: he is usually shown as having two faces, one in front and one at the back, symbolizing his powers.

FEBRUARY
February comes from the Latin word februa, the Roman festival  of Purification held every 15th of February.  This is also the month that occupies a special place in hearts of lovers and sweethearts who, on the 14th of the month, think nothing of spending hard-earned pesos on sweet nothings to celebrate the most common human failty and universal preoccupation: love and courtship.  An unofficial “red letter day” for amorous adventures and trysts, Valentine’s Day was originally celebrated in honor of St. Valentine, a Christian martyr of the 3rd century A.D.

MARCH
March from the Latin word Martius is the month of Mars, the Roman god of war.  “Beware the Ides of March”, so went the portentous warning given to Julius Caesar.

APRIL
April, comes from the Latin word aperire which means “to open” (buds), later from the Latin aprilis, the original meaning of which was “the second month”
This is the only month in the calendar that starts with a joke, the first of the month being All Fool’s Day, a time when pranks or making a fool of one’s neighbor are generally tolerated, if not sanctioned.

MAY
May from the Latin Word Maius, is named after Maia, the goddess of growth or increase.

JUNE
June comes from the French word juin and the Latin Junius, meaning the month of Junius which is a Roman family name.

The name June may also have originated from juvenis, Latin for “youth”.

JULY
July, originally called Quintilis or the fifth month according to the earliest Latin calendar, is named after Julius Caesar.
Water is the element that characterizes this month: summer has ended and the rains have come.

AUGUST
August is the month named after Augustus Caesar (also known as Octavian), the grandnephew of Julius Caesar, and the first Roman emperor who ruled from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D.

August may have also been derived from the Latin word, augusium, meaning divination, from which also came the word augury.

SEPTEMBER
September comes from the Latin word septem meaning seven or the seventh. The original name of the month, however, is from an Anglo Saxon word that means harvest month.

OCTOBER
October, from the Latin word octo meaning eight, was the eight month of the early Roman calendar.

NOVEMBER
November, from novem which is Latin for nine, was the ninth month of the old Roman calendar.

DECEMBER

December, the last month of the year, comes from the Latin word decem meaning ten. Although the present calendar shows the month  to be the twelfth, it was really the tenth month of the early Romans, who reckoned from March.

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