Welcome to October! I’ll take it upon myself to be the official greeting committee for this most insidious month. Why? Well, October seems to have some pretty impressive credentials… the Bolshevik October Revolution… Oktoberfest… see what I mean? But let’s look closer at October’s apparent claims to fame.

The October Revolution of 1917 could be, by the pedantic out there, rendered as the October (Old-Style) / November (New-Style) Revolution. It occurred either on November 7, under the Gregorian calendar, or October 25, according to the Julian calendar. The anniversary of the Revolution was celebrated in the Soviet Union on November 7th, which got me wondering at first why exactly it was known as the October Revolution.

Bavaria’s most famous event, Oktoberfest, predominantly occurs in September (so do your research before turning up to this one!). Depending on how the days fall, the festival is either seventeen or eighteen drunken days, ending on one of the first three dates in October. This leaves an awful lot of un-credited September in this so-called October festival.

Now I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories, but I am prone to a rant every now and then. What’s the deal, October? How can we continue to perpetuate these fallacies!?! A word of warning to anyone who thinks they might be born in October, better have another look at your birth certificate…