New Year’s Day, celebrated annually on 1 January, is probably one of the most recognised holidays around the world and has been celebrated for millennia.
New Year’s celebrations will start in the Pacific Ocean, with Samoa celebrating the New Year before the rest of the world. The last stroke of midnight will occur in the middle of the Pacific Ocean near Baker Island, halfway between Hawaii and Australia.
The earliest records of New Year’s Day celebrations come from Babylonian times. The celebrations took place on the night of the first new moon after the vernal equinox and occurred in Martius (March), the first month in the early Roman calendar, which only had 10 months.
The months Januarius (named for the pagan god of gates, doors and beginnings) and Februarius were added to the calendar by King Pompilius, bringing the calendar to 12 months.
It was Julius Ceasar who created the Julian calendar, which most resembles the Gregorian calendar used by the majority of the world today.
1 January was celebrated by the Romans in honour of Janus, who could, because of his two faces, look towards the past and forward to the future. Celebrating the first day of the year in the appropriately named month of January, Romans made sacrifices to Janus, giving gifts and indulging in general revelry.
Some New Year’s traditions around the world, include the following:
• Kissing the person you hope to be kissing for the rest of the year, exactly at midnight.
• Making noise, either in the form of fireworks, ringing bells, blasting horns or pistol shots, are traditional around the world.
• Toasts to the New Year are made with spiced wine in Holland, wassail in England or champagne in the United States.
• Resolutions are not a modern tradition. The Babylonians made commitments to return borrowed objects and to pay old debts.
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