History of January

Can you guess why I'm posting a photo of a door? Its because I cracked open the "J" World Book and found out that January is named for the Roman god Janus who was the patron of doors and gates. Janua is in fact the Latin word for gate.

Before the month of January existed there were only ten months in the year. Think about that for a moment. If you were born in the summer you would eventually end up with a winter birthday and vice versa. Someone named Numa Pompilius figured out a remedy for that problem---he added January and February to the calendar. That meant January was the eleventh month, however. Someone named Julius Caesar must have thought that was a problem for he decreed that January should be the first month of the year.