The New Year basically
celibrates the cycle of the passing of the earth's orbit round the sun. The day
you pick to celebrate this is arbitary unless you are using a lunar calender.
Our New Year follows the Gregorian calendar and falls on 1 Januaryfollowing the
Roman calender.
The Roman calendar went from
January to December since King Numa Pompilius in about 700 BC. It was only
relatively recently that 1 January again became the first day of the year in
Western culture. Until 1751 in England and Wales the New Year started on 25
March – called Lady Day, one of the four quarter days.
In Britain the quarter days
were the four dates in each year on which servants were hired, and rents were
due. They fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close
to the two solstices and two equinoxes.
The significance of quarter
days is now limited to leasehold payments and rents for land and premises in
England are often still due on the old English quarter days.
The quarter days have been
observed at least since the Middle Ages, and they ensured that debts and
unresolved lawsuits were not allowed to linger on. Accounts had to be settled,
a reckoning had to be made and publicly recorded on the quarter days.
The English quarter days
were:
Lady Day (25 March)
Midsummer Day (24 June)
Michaelmas (29 September)
Christmas (25 December)
The British tax year still
starts on 'Old' Lady Day, 6 April following the Gregorian calendar.
During the Middle Ages
several other days were variously taken as the beginning of the calendar year
(1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September, 25 December).
With the expansion of
Western culture to many other places in the world during recent centuries, the
Gregorian calendar has been adopted by other countries as the official
calendar, and the 1 January date of New Year has become global, even in
countries with their own New Year celebrations on other days (such as Israel,
China and India).
The Chinese New Year, also
known as the Lunar New Year, occurs every year on the new moon of the first
lunar month, about the beginning of spring (Lichun). The exact date can fall
any time between 21 January and 21 February of the Gregorian Calendar. It is
the most important Chinese celebration of the year.The Iranian New Year, called
Nowruz, is the day in March containing the exact moment of the Northward
equinox, which is when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading
northward. At the equinox, the horizon crosses the sun's disk directly in the
east at dawn and crosses directly in the west at dusk.
Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew for
'head of the year') is a Jewish, two day holiday, commemorating the culmination
of the seven days of Creation, and marking God's yearly renewal of the world.
The holiday is a festival and
but also includes the Day of Atonement when a shofar is blown and all called to
atone for their sins. God is believed to be assessing the creation and
determining its fate for the coming year. In Jewish tradition, honey is used to
symbolize a sweet new year. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple
slices are dipped in honey and eaten with blessings recited for a good, sweet
new year. Some Rosh Hashanah greetings show honey and an apple, symbolizing the
feast. In some congregations, small straws of honey are given out to usher in
the New Year.
Pagans celebrate their
interpretation of Samhain (a festival of the ancient Celts, held around 1
November) as a New Year's Day representing the new cycle of the Wheel of the
Year, although they do not use a different calendar that starts on this day.
The Islamic New Year occurs
on 1 Muharram. Since the Muslim calendar is based on 12 lunar months amounting
to about 354 days, the Muslim New Year occurs about eleven days earlier each
year in relation to the Gregorian calendar.
Since the 17th century, the
Roman Catholic liturgical year has started on the first day of Advent, the
Sunday nearest to St. Andrew's Day (30 November). The same liturgical calendar
is followed by churches descended from it, including the Anglican and Lutheran
Churches.
The Eastern Orthodox Church
liturgical calendar begins on 1 September.
In 45 BC Julius Caesar
introduced the Julian calendar, and fixed 1 January as the first day of the
year.
Later, with the spread of
Christianity, various dates for the New Year which had special significance to
Christianity were adopted. 1 January was associated with the incarnation of
God’s son, Christ; 25 March was Annunciation Day or Lady Day. This is the day
when Mary was informed by the Angel Gabriel that she would bear God’s son
Jesus.
When William the Conqueror
took over the reins of England, he ordered that 1 January be established as the
New Year to collaborate it with his coronation and with the circumcision of
Jesus (on the eighth day from his birth on December 25). However, this was
abandoned later as they joined the rest of the Christian world to celebrate New
Year on 25 March.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII
while reforming the Julian calendar established 1 January as the beginning of a
New Year of the Gregorian calendar.
Because of the division of the
globe into time zones, the New Year moves progressively around the globe as the
start of the day ushers in the New Year. The first time zone to usher in the
New Year is just west of the International Date Line. The central Pacific Ocean
island nation of Kiribati claims that its easternmost landmass, uninhabited
Caroline Island, is the first to usher in the New Year.
