history months calendar

Have you ever wondered why, when it’s the eight month of our calendar year if we start counting in January, August is called August in English?

You might be a little surprised to learn that, until about 8BCE, the Romans called August Sextilis, since at that point, it was the sixth month of the year. The Roman lunar calendar used to start in March, not January, and originally the Roman calendar only had 10 months.