As a slight detour: The strange case of the names of the months.
As an avid TME contributor, you will of course have noticed that the last few months of the "modern" calendar have names that sound like numbers.
Sept, Oct, Nove, Dec.
Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten.
So why are they the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th months?
Our “modern” calendar has been bodged and buggered about since Roman times. When Rome took over Egypt, the Romans adopted chunks of the Egyptian calender. But still felt compelled to muck things up, so February got raided for days to add to July and August (that also got their names changed) so as to glorify their leaders. The Romans had had a 10 month year, and needed some added months to use the Egyptian system. Rather than tack them on at the end, they stuck them at the front. That then shifted the others to be "off by 2", but as the middle ones had their names changed to honour Roman Emperors, only the last few are obviously screwed up. And we keep them screwed up to this day.
Ref: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/18 ... th-months/