Did You Know? Fun facts about

By Dani Messick House and Home Writer

August is named after Roman emperor August Caesar but the month existed long before that. Around 700 BC, the astrologers of Julius Caesar impressed upon the Roman population the importance of having a 12-month calendar year in order to remain in line with the sky.

At the time, the Roman calendar had 10 months, each with 30 or 31 days, and Sextilis was the sixth month of the year. January and February were tacked on the back end of the Gregorian calendar to make up for the deficit.

A few centuries later, two of the months would be given honorary new names. Quintilis became Julius in 44 BC, later July, in honor of Julius Caesar. Sextilis became Augustus in 8 BC and later August in honor of his son Augustus. Both were changed not long after the royals’ deaths.

The number of days associated with the month also changed, several times in fact, through history. At first, the month had 30 days, and then 31, and at one point just 29. When the renaming occurred, both months received 31 days, a signifier of their royal namesakes’ importance, and they took those extra days from February, which got Leap Day in the trade-off.

A Time Of Change

Destruction, renewal, and generational change are the common themes for August, as it turns out. If you’re feeling like change is in the wings, don’t be alarmed, because a new world awaits.

“This August, Pluto is at the Anaretic Degree, the Greek word for ‘Destroyer’,” explained Autumn Astrochic of Cosmic Connection Center in Mishawaka. “The point in the cycle of Pluto denotes great change coming after the end of a certain way of life, on a generational scale.”

“Pluto will continue to square the Karmic Nodes through November, inviting a pressure of physical and soulful shifts. Venus in her retrograde cycle helps tweak our tastes and realign our value systems, which eases the coming changes,” she added.

Interestingly, a number of historic events happened during the month of August in similar astrological places.

The Berlin Wall was erected on Aug. 13, 1961, dividing communism in East Germany from the Federal Republic of Germany on the West side. When it fell in November 1989, it was the culmination of more than two decades of political and economic conflict.

Italian explorer Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on what he’d hoped would be a circumnavigation to India on Aug. 3, 1942, landing instead in the Bahamas in the first recorded voyage to the New World.

Mount Vesuvius erupted on Aug. 24, 79 AD, destroying the Greek city of Pompeii and engulfing its citizens in an ashy grave for all eternity.

The U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the first atomic bombs on Aug. 6, 1945, which all but ended World War II in the Pacific Theater.

John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, asked for two slices of bread with roast beef in the middle so he could eat it with his hands while playing cards on Aug. 6, 1762.

Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 28, 1963, and around 250,000 people attended the speech calling the end to racial discrimination and equal rights for all. n