It's not silent. It was easier to say in Latin, februarius, from februa, the name of a purification feast held in this month. The extra syllables at the end make it go more smoothly. French changed the “b” to a “v”, which was also easier, and that's how English got it.
The loss of the first "r" in the pronunciation of February is (in part) the result of a process called dissimilation (or haplology), where one of two similar sounds in a word is sometimes changed or dropped to avoid the repetition of that sound. (A similar process sometimes occurs with the pronunciation of library.)
Spelling of February: February is spelled F-e-b-r-u-a-r-y. The “f” should always be capitalized because it is the name of a month.
The 'u' sound before the 'a' is a little awkward for English. The 'a' sound (æ) is completely on the other end of the throat from 'u', so when we're reaching for it, we end up putting a big 'w' in there to help make the transition. So really people are saying 'Februwary'.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the situation is reversed—most people in the UK say “feb-roo-ary”. However, most major dictionaries, both American and British, now list “feb-yoo-ary” as an acceptable variant, so it's more a matter of personal preference than correctness.
When the first settlers set sail from England to America, they took with them the common tongue at the time, which was based on something called rhotic speech (when you pronounce the r sound in a word).
This split between rhotic and non-rhotic pronunciation has its origins in London in the 1850s. Working-class speakers began dropping the /r/ sound at the ends of words. Back then, this was considered lazy, vulgar and an undesirable way of speaking. Over time though, the change spread.
The r in February has been dropped so that it is almost always pronounced Febuary–without the r. Perhaps this is because placing the r sound in the word makes it slightly more difficult to pronounce, and since laziness tends to get the upper hand when we speak, Febuary has become the common pronunciation.
Difficulty pronouncing the /r/ sound is known as rhotacism and it is customarily considered to be a speech impediment. Rhotacism is very common among children because /r/ is one of the most challenging sounds to pronounce in the English language.
One of the things that makes the R sound so difficult is that there are several different sounds that make up what we think of as the “R” sound in English (when it is spoken with a North American accent). We have the consonant R, often transcribed by phoneticists or speech-language pathologists as /r/ (as in “red”).
In England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, India, Canada (usually), and New Zealand, Z is pronounced as zed. It's derived from the Greek letter zeta.
It surely sounds strange to those who are familiar with American or British English, but it is a very common expression in Australia. G'day is a shortened form of 'Good Day' and it is the equivalent of 'Hello.
Canadians are just as likely as Americans to use fall. And although we found quite a few instances of fall in Australian publications, Australian writers seem to favor autumn by a significant margin.