The history of the New Year

We are counting down to the start of the new year but has January 1st always been defined as the first day of the new year?

Well history tells us that January 1st hasn’t always signalled the change of year.

Ancient civilizations around the world developed sophisticated calendars that would usually connect the change of year to an agricultural event for example the first crop of an important plant appearing in the landscape or to an astronomical event such as the marking the appearance of a significant constellation of stars in the night sky.

The Egyptians new year began when the River Nile would flood which happened every year and would coincide with the appearance of the star Sirius in the night sky.

Chinese New year happened with the second new moon after the winter solstice.

The Ancient Romans calendar only had 10 months and 304 days. Over the centuries that calendar fell out of sync with the movement of the sun and in 46 B.C. Julius Caesar decided that the problem needed to be solved so he consulted with the most important astronomers and mathematicians of the time to develop a new calendar. The Julian calendar, closely resembles the Gregorian calendar that most countries use today.

As part of the change to the calendar Caesar chose January 1st as the first day of the year in honour of the Roman god of new beginnings Janus, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future.