Why Does February Have 28 Days? Details Behind the Strange History

Unfortunately for the king, his plan backfired because the change meant that his calendar would have a total of 354 days — a supposedly unlucky even number. The only way to fix the problem would be for one month to have an even number of days. King Numa Popilius decided on February, which, as Britannica writes, “would be host to Roman rituals honoring the dead, as the unlucky month to consist of 28 days.”

Despite the fact that we use the Gregorian calendar now, which has seen many changes since the Roman calendar days (one of which is leap day), February has remained the shortest month.