Mercedonius

Okay kiddo, so Mercedonius is a tricky thing to explain but I'll do my best to make it easy for you to understand.

You know how the calendar tells us what day it is and when holidays are, right? Well, a long time ago, people used a calendar that was based on the phases of the moon instead of the sun. It was called a lunar calendar.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. The lunar calendar didn't exactly match up with the solar calendar of 365 days, so every few years, there would be an extra month added to make up for the difference. This extra month was called Mercedonius.

But, the people who controlled the calendars didn't always add Mercedonius at the same time or for the same number of days. It was kind of a guessing game and caused a lot of confusion for people trying to keep track of time and plan their activities.

Eventually, the Roman emperor Julius Caesar introduced a new calendar that was based on the sun and didn't need an extra month. This calendar is the one we use today, called the Gregorian calendar.

So, even though Mercedonius isn't used anymore, it's an interesting piece of history that shows how people used to keep track of time and how confusing it could be before we had a standardized calendar.