EOY

Why New Year is on 1 January

Nothing in the sky happens on 1 January. The year starts there because Roman officials did, and because two calendar reforms kept the habit.

Rome: consuls and Janus

The Roman year had begun in March — which is why September, October, November and December are named as the seventh to tenth months. The consular year moved from March to 1 January in 153 BC, and the first of January became the start of the year at some point after that. In pre-Christian Rome the day was dedicated to Janus, god of gateways and beginnings, for whom January is named. The Julian calendar, which took effect on 1 January 45 BC by Caesar's edict, fixed the date.

The Middle Ages: a movable start

For centuries the date was far from universal. Across medieval Christian Europe the new year was variously celebrated on 25 December, on 1 March in the old Roman style, on 25 March (Lady Day), and even on the movable feast of Easter. A traveller could cross a border and change year.

Restored, slowly

The Gregorian reform of 1582 restored 1 January as the beginning of the year in the countries that adopted it, but adoption took centuries. England, Wales, Ireland and Britain's American colonies switched to 1 January as New Year's Day only from 1752 — the same year they dropped eleven days to join the Gregorian calendar, as told in the leap year article.

Ten days from the solstice

The December solstice falls around 21 December, about ten days before New Year. The gap is an accident of history rather than a design: the calendar's anchors are Roman and civic, not astronomical, and later reforms adjusted the length of the year without moving its start. The solstice itself is explained in solstices and equinoxes.

Today

1 January is among the most widely celebrated public holidays in the world, usually marked with fireworks at the stroke of midnight — a different stroke in each time zone, which is what the board counts down to. Where it strikes first and last is in this article.

Sources

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