Have you ever wondered how New Years became a celebration and resolutions to do better or be better or something along those lines became a part of the tradition? Me too, I got curious and decided to do a little research and came up with the following bit of trivia which I hope informs and entertains you.
The celebration of the New Year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, Babylonians celebrated the beginning of a new year on what is now March 23.Greeks chose to celebrate on the Winter Solstice, At that time in history the Roman calendar only had ten months with March being the first month. That would give each month 36 and a half days.
Numa Pompilius, the second king, of Rome, divided the year into twelve lunar months by adding the months of January and February giving the months 29 days each. The months now only had 349 days each. New Years was shifted to January 1 as it marked the beginning of the civil year in Rome.
The tradition of New Year's Resolutions goes back to 153 B.C. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome was placed at the head of the calendar. With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.Julius Caesar was pretty smart. He figured that since a year had 365 days, each month should have 30 or 31 days except for February which had 28 or 29. That was the beginning of the Julian solar calendar. That 29 came much later as a leap year addition but Julius came real close to the real deal.There have been arguments about calendar when to celebrate what just about since the calendar begun. Medieval Europe the celebrations were considered pagan and unchristian like and in 567 A.D. the Council of Tours abolished January 1 as the beginning of the year In various places through out Medieval Europe, December 25 the New Year was celebrated along with the birth of Jesus, March 1, March 23, the Feast of the Annunciation and Easter.So, for 40000 years, we humans have been celebrating some date as the beginning of the new year, and using it as a reason to drink and be rowdy then make some kind of resolution to not make the same mistakes again in the next year, Yeah…sure we do...Have a Happy New Year and keep those resolutions simple.
