The History of New Year's Day

New Year's Day, also called New Year's or New Year, is observed on January 1. It is the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar.

In 45 B.C., New Year’s Day was celebrated for the first time as per as the Julian calendar. When Julius Caesar became the Roman Dictator, he realised that the Roman calendar, that followed the lunar cycle, needed a reformation. It is because the calendar usually fell out of phase with the seasons. In the reformation process, Caesar took help from Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer. Sosigenes advised Caesar to follow the solar year instead of the lunar cycle. Despite the change in the Julian Calendar, during the middle ages, the celebration of New Year’s Day in January fell out of practice. It was so because Caesar and Sosigenes could not calculate the correct value for the solar year. Thus, an 11-minute-a-year error added 10 days by the mid-15th century. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII, after analysing the problem, implemented the Gregorian Calendar, omitting the extra 10 days. Since then, people gather together and celebrate New Year’s Day on 1^st January, with a lot of fun and frolic.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/new-years-day