quantumclaustrophobe
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The date of New Year’s Day seems so fundamental that it’s almost as though nature ordained it. But New Year’s Day is a civil event. Its date isn’t precisely fixed by any natural seasonal marker.
Our modern celebration of New Year’s Day stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus – god of doorways and beginnings. The name for the month of January also comes from Janus, who was depicted as having two faces. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.
For us in the Northern Hemisphere, early January is a logical time for new beginnings. At the December solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, we had the shortest day of the year. By early January, our days are obviously lengthening again. This return of longer hours of daylight had a profound effect on cultures that were tied to agricultural cycles. It has an emotional effect on people even in cities today.
The early calendar-makers didn’t know it, but today we know there is another bit of astronomical logic behind beginning the year on January 1. Earth is always closest to the sun in its yearly orbit around this time. This event is called Earth’s perihelion.
People didn’t always celebrate the new year on January 1. The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, circa 2000 B.C. That celebration – and many other ancient celebrations of the new year following it – were celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, around March 20. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the autumnal equinox around September 20. And the ancient Greeks celebrated on the winter solstice, around December 20.
By the Middle Ages, though, in many places the new year began in March. Around the 16th century, a movement developed to restore January 1 as New Year’s Day. In the New Style or Gregorian calendar, the New Year begins on the first of January.
Bottom line: There’s no astronomical reason to celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1. Instead, our modern New Year’s celebration stems from the ancient, two-faced, Roman god Janus – for whom the month of January is also named. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.
Morningfox
Back about 2060 years ago (46 BC), the calendar was a mess. Some years were 355 days long, and some were 378 days. Mostly, it was a political decision, not a scientific one. When Julius Ceasar got in power, he decided to fix the old system. So he put in the calendar we know now (except the leap year rules were different).
The main story seems to be that Julius decided that the full moon in March 45 BC should fall on March 15th (they could predict full moon dates far in advance). So he set the day 73 days before that as "January 1" of his new system.
Another story is that he set the date of the winter solstice to be "December 25" because of an old tradition; because his calendar didn't have the correct leap year rules, the solstice date is now around December 21.
GeoffG
New Year's Day has absolutely nothing to do with the Winter Solstice. Traditionally it is the date of the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ.
Ray;mond
They were looking for the perigee, or is it the apogee, but missed by several days? Our calendar has drifted since the date was selected? They wanted to honor some long dead scientist?