PART ONE. The evil Rome as the real and the real false prophet revealed to me by our Lord Jesus Christ

It’s also the common opinion that Augustus moved a day from February to August in order to make his month the same number of days as Caesar’s (July). However, there is little actual evidence to support this. We know that Caesar made every even month 30 days (except February) and this would seem to fit for August as the 8th month. No ancient sources seem to mention the movement of the day, even those who came after Augustus, who could’ve done so without fear of reprisal. While it seems to fit that Augustus added a day to the 30-day even month of August, there just isn’t enough evidence to support this without a doubt.

Even the historian Suetonius, who assuredly printed any rumour or gossip about his subjects without concern over factual data, fails to mention the movement of the day:

“Inasmuch as the calendar, which had been set in order by the Deified Julius, had later been confused and disordered through negligence, he restored it to its former system [8 B.C.]; and in making this arrangement he called the month Sextilis by his own surname, rather than his birth month September, because in the former he had won his first consulship and his most brilliant victories.“

Unfortunately, as suggested, a slight miscalculation on the part of the ancients left Renaissance scholars in a bit of difficulty. The actual year is 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than what was calculated by Caesar and his Egyptian astronomers, so over the centuries, the difference grew to as much as 10 days. By 1582 AD, while the difference was still fairly negligible in comparison to seasonal circumstances, Pope Gregor XIII devised a new calendar, simply adjusting the old. The removal of three leap years each four centuries, basically, every year divisible by 100, but not 400, was removed from the calendar going forward.

The difference in future years was then taken care of, but Gregor also had to remove 10 days from the month of October 1582 to bring things back in line. This reduced the error to almost nothing. The Gregorian Calendar, while more accurate than the Julian, took some time to catch on. Many European nations adopted it rather quickly in the 17th century, but Britain and her colonies, including the United States, waited until much later in the 18th century. Russia was the last of the western nations by doing so in the 20th century.