FUN FACTS ABOUT THE MONTH OF AUGUST

·         August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars.

·          It is also one of seven months with a length of 31 days.

·         The Anglo-Saxons called August by the name Weod-monath (weed month) as it is the month when weeds grow most rapidly.

·         In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere.

·         Twenty-two per cent of Norwegians named August were born in August.

·         In common years no other month starts on the same day of the week as August.

·         August ends on the same day of the week as November every year.

·         Henry VI Part 1 and The Tempest are the only Shakespeare plays that mention August.

·         This month was originally named Sextilis in Latin, because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first month of the year.

·         About 700 BC it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days.

·         Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 45 BC giving it its modern length of 31 days.

·         In 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus (despite common belief, he did not take a day from February).

·         On the 21^st of August 1911, Leornado de Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Gallery.

·         In 1963 on the 28^th of August, Martin Luther King made his famous “I have a dream” speech.

·         On the 31^st of this same month in 1997, Princess Dianna was killed.