History of New Years

By Spencer

Have you ever wondered where the traditions and celebrations on New Year’s Eve came from? Well, today’s your lucky day, because I’m going to tell you all about it! Let’s get started!

Ok, the first ever recorded new year’s celebrations were in Babylon around 4000 B.C.E. These celebrations were in March because that was the new year according to their calendar. The Babylonians held an 11 day long festival that not only celebrated the new year, but also religiously celebrated the sky god, Marduk, defeating the sea god, Tiamat. During this festival, they also crowned the new king or decided to let the current king continue to rule.

The original Roman calendar was trying to be on the lunar calendar and celebrated the New Year’s on the vernal equinox. Note that I said that the original Roman calendar was trying to be on the lunar calendar. It actually fell out of sync with the seasons and constantly had to be fixed. To make matters worse, the people who were in charge of fixing the calendar were politicians and messed with the calendar for their own means.

When Julius Caesar became dictator of Rome, he realized that something needed to be done about the calendar. He called on the astronomer Sosigenes to help him. Sosigenes suggested that they just get rid of the current calendar and make a solar calendar. They decided to add 67 days to 46 B.C. which caused 45 B.C. to begin on January 1st instead of in March. After Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C Mark Anthony changed the month Quintilis to Julius to honor Caesar. Later, the month Sextillis was changed to Augustus to honor the person who came after Mark.

Let’s jump to the Middle Ages, where almost no one celebrates the new year’s in January. The people who don’t celebrate it on January 1st because Julius and Sosigenes slightly miscalculated the length of the year. When the church saw this problem in the 1570s, Pope Gregory XIII asked an astronomer called Cristopher Clavius to find a way to solve the problem. In 1582, people started using our modern calendar, called the Gregorian calendar, and celebrated new year’s on January 1st.