A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which was first used and invented in Mesopotamia, as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of moon phases; such months (lunations) are synodic months and last approximately 29.53 days. From excavated tally sticks, researchers have deduced that people counted days in relation to the Moon's phases as early as the Paleolithic age. Synodic months, based on the Moon's orbital period, are still the basis of many calendars today, and are used to divide the year.
Read more about Month: Types of Months, Calendrical Consequences
Famous quotes containing the word month:
“Just the same as a month before,—
The house and the trees,
The barn’s brown gable, the vine by the door,—
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“These young women have had four years of very special space.... This has been special space. This has been safe space. But when they graduate, they will begin to deal on a daily basis, all day long, month after month, year after year, with the realities that still haunt our nation.”
—Johnnetta Betsch Cole (b. 1936)
“You have been here only a short time, Mr. Barnard. You cannot know what it is to live here month upon month, year after year, breathing this infernal air, absorbing the miasma of barbarity that permeates these walls, especially this chamber.”
—Richard Matheson (b. 1926)