We have the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus to thank for our month of August, which begins today.
The month was originally named, “Sextillus”, or “sixth month”, but since his Grand-Uncle Julius had a month named for himself-July-the Roman senate decided to grant Augustus his own month also, and changed the name to Augustus.
This tinkering with the calendar eventually had the month of January occurring in the autumn.
It wasn’t until Pope Gregory instituted a refined calendar in 1582 that many of the calendar mistakes were corrected.
