The month of January can be found in the Gregorian calendar and in its older version, the Julian calendar. During this month, major holidays like New Year’s and Martin Luther King Jr. Day are celebrated. But, where did it get its name from?

The Latin name for January is Ianuarius, originating from Ianus, which means “arched passage” or “doorway”. The word Ianus is also the Latin name for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, as well as many other domains, including endings, doorways, and transitions. He is famously depicted as having two faces, looking to the past and to the future.

Originally, January didn’t always begin the new year; that had been March. However, during his reign, King Numa Pompilius (the legendary second king of Rome) reformed the early Roman calendar (which had only included 10 months), adding January and February to align it to the lunar year. However, it wasn’t until 45 BCE that Julius Caesar established January 1st as the first day of the year in his Julian calendar.

Many centuries later, due to the Julian calendar miscalculating the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, which in turn causes the calendar to fall out of sync with the seasons and makes Easter fall further away from the spring equinox, Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar in 1582 to fix the issue.

Fun Facts:
● The Gregorian calendar was quickly accepted by the Catholics but rejected by Protestants
until the 1700s.
● England accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, causing 11 days to be skipped, going
from September 2 to September 14.
● Before January 1st, European countries replaced the new year with the days that carried
greater religious significance, such as December 25 (Christmas) or March 25 (the Feast of
the Annunciation).