Happy New Year Images

A History of the New Year

A move from March to January

by Borgna Brunner

Julius Caesar and the Gregorain Calendar

New Year's Features

New Year's Traditions

Rosh Hashannah, Jewish New Year

Chinese New Year

Muharram, Islamic New Year

Saying "Happy New Year!" Around the World

The Calendar

The Curious History of the Gregorian Calendar

Jump Year Explained

The Ides of March

A Tale of Two Easters

April Fools' Day Explained

How August Became So August

Names of the Months

Names of the Days of the Week

Logbooks and Holidays

Reference book: Calendar

History of the Calendar

The Infoplease Perpetual Calendar

The festival of the new year on January first is a moderately new wonder. The most punctual account of a new year festivity is accepted to have been in Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. what's more, was commended around the season of the vernal equinox, in mid-March. An assortment of different dates attached to the seasons were additionally utilized by different old societies. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians started their new year with the fall equinox, and the Greeks praised it on the winter solstice.

Early Roman Calendar: March first Rings in the New Year
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The early Roman logbook assigned March 1 as the new year. The logbook had only ten months, starting with March. That the new year once started with the period of March is as yet reflected in a portion of the names of the months. September through December, our ninth through twelfth months, were initially situated as the seventh through tenth months (septem is Latin for "seven," octo is "eight," novem is "nine," and decem is "ten."

January Joins the Calendar

The first run through the new year was commended on January first was in Rome in 153 B.C. (Truth be told, the long stretch of January did not exist until around 700 B.C., when the second lord of Rome, Numa Pontilius, included the long stretches of January and February.) The new year was moved from March to January since that was the start of the common year, the month that the two newly chose Roman diplomats—the most astounding authorities in the Roman republic—started their one-year residency. Be that as it may, this new year date was not in every case entirely and broadly watched, and the new year was still in some cases celebrated on March 1.

Julian Calendar: January first Officially Instituted as the New Year

In 46 B.C. Julius Caesar presented a new, sun oriented based timetable that was a tremendous change on the antiquated Roman logbook, which was a lunar framework that had turned out to be fiercely incorrect throughout the years. The Julian schedule declared that the new year would happen with January 1, and inside the Roman world, January 1 turned into the reliably watched beginning of the new year.

Medieval times: January first Abolished

In medieval Europe, in any case, the festivals going with the new year were viewed as agnostic and unchristian like, and in 567 the Council of Tours canceled January 1 as the start of the year. At different occasions and in different places all through medieval Christian Europe, the new year was commended on Dec. 25, the introduction of Jesus; March 1; March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation; and Easter.

Gregorian Calendar: January first Restored

In 1582, the Gregorian logbook change reestablished January 1 as new year's day. Albeit most Catholic nations received the Gregorian logbook very quickly, it was just slowly embraced among Protestant nations. The British, for instance, did not embrace the changed date-book until 1752. Until at that point, the British Empire — and their American settlements—still praised the new year in March.