New Year is a famous, bright and perhaps the most anticipated holiday that marks the beginning of the new year and, despite the winter weather, brings a lot of joy and warmth. Longstanding New Year celebrations have been held since 2000 BC. e. in Mesopotamia and confined to the vernal equinox. Ancient peoples used other dates for the New Year holiday. In ancient Greece, the beginning of the year was celebrated with the winter solstice; in Egypt, the New Year was celebrated at the autumn equinox.

Why, then, January 1 is the universal New Year holiday, which is celebrated in different parts of the world? Obviously, to find out, you should look into the history of the holiday.

Early roman calendar

The ancient Romans originally used the lunar calendar, where there were ten months and the year began on March 1. In the VII century. Roman emperor Numa Pompilius transformed the calendar, as a result of which 2 new months — January and February — were added to the year. January was named after the Roman god of beginnings and the doors of Janus, who was depicted with 2 faces turned to the west and east, looking into the past and future. The name "Janus" comes from the Latin word janua, which means "door, entrance."

According to the Roman calendar, the year began in March, the day when 2 new consuls (senior government officials) took office and began the one-year reign. But by 153 A.D., after adding two months to the year, the consuls held the post on January 1, and so the New Year was moved from the first spring month to January.

The early calendar of the Romans followed the lunar cycle and often needed to be adjusted due to the divergence of the phases of the moon with the seasons. In addition, pontiffs in charge of the calendar often added days to a year to extend the term of office of politicians or to interfere in elections.

Interesting fact:The current date of the New Year is of astronomical significance, since at the beginning of January (2-5 numbers) the Earth reaches perihelion - the closest point in orbit to the sun. The perihelion of the Earth is 147 million km. The most distant point of the orbit from the sun is aphelion, or apogelium, which is 152 million km., The Earth passes on July 2-7.

Julian calendar: setting January 1 as the date of the New Year

In 46, the Roman statesman, the great pontiff Julius Caesar, with the help of the Alexandrian astrologer Sozigen created Julian calendar based on solar time following the example of the ancient Egyptians. The Julian calendar improved the ancient Roman calendar, which became inaccurate by then. In the Julian calendar, the year officially began on January 1 and contained 365 days, breaking into 12 sunny months. Every 4 years, February joined 1 day (leap). The month in which Julius Caesar was born is called “July,” August is named after his successor, Octavian Augustus.

As the Roman Empire expanded in the following centuries, the Julian calendar spread throughout Europe and became the direct ancestor of the current Gregorian calendar.

Middle Ages: cancellation of January 1

With the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, the church leaders of Europe of the Middle Ages considered the ancient New Year celebrations to be non-Christian customs, and in 567 the Council of Tours canceled the date of January 1 for the New Year holiday. The beginning of the year, depending on the region, began to be celebrated on other days, including religious holidays in the Christian church calendar: December 25 (Christmas), March 1, March 25 (Annunciation), Easter, September 1. These days often coincided with astronomical phenomena, for example, December 25, according to the Julian calendar, is the winter solstice.

Gregorian calendar: January 1 recovery

The celebration of the New Year in January came out of practice in the Middle Ages also because of the discrepancy between the Julian calendar and the solar calendar.The correct value for the tropical (sunny) year is 365.2425 days instead of 365.25 days presented on the Julian calendar. A deviation of 11 minutes over the centuries has led to the fact that by 1000 7 days were added, and by the 1500s the difference grew to 10 days. The vernal equinox shifted from March 21 to March 11, which created difficulties for the church in calculating Easter day.

The Church of Rome discovered a discrepancy in time, and in order to align the calendar year with the solar year, in the 1570s, Pope Gregory XIII commissioned the German astronomer Christopher Clavius ​​to develop a new procedure for calculating time and as a result 1582 Gregorian calendar was created. The Roman bishop reduced the extra 10 days, established the rule for determining leap years, in which the leap year, except for every 4th year, fell not every century, but every four hundred years. Pope Gregory XIII also officially restored the date of January 1 as the first day of the year.

The Catholic states immediately adopted a calendar reform, while the Orthodox and Protestant ones gradually switched to a new count of time. For example, in England, the New Year is celebrated on January 1 from 1752, before that the British celebrated the New Year on March 25. Russia began to use the Gregorian calendar in 1918, and the New Year holiday on January 1 is being held here since 1700, when the Russian Tsar Peter I set a new New Year date on January 1 instead of the previous one - September 1.

Another time for New Years celebration

January 1 is almost universally recognized as the beginning of a new year. However, some people are guided by their own calendars and celebrate the New Year at different times of the year. In Israel, the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is determined by the Jewish calendar and can be celebrated for two days in September or October, in Ethiopia the New Year (Enkutatash) takes place on September 11, in China the New Year holiday is set by the Chinese calendar and falls on the period January 21 – 21 February.

Interesting fact: New Year celebrations are often accompanied by the use of pyrotechnics: sparklers, crackers, fireworks. This tradition comes from China, where they believed that bright light and noise scare away evil spirits and bring peace and happiness to the house.

Thus, on January 1, the first day of the year, the first Roman official was Julius Caesar, who introduced the Julian calendar in 46. In ancient Rome, January 1 marked the beginning of a new civil year, since from 153 on that day two consuls held office and began one-year rule. In addition, the ancient Roman king Numa Pompilius (VII century. E.) called January the name of the two-faced god began Janus, one face of which looked into the past, and the other into the future. Therefore, the New Year is not accidentally considered the time for new beginnings.

In medieval Europe, January 1 was canceled as the first day of the year, but in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, which aligned the civil year with the solar year and officially restored January 1 as the beginning of the year.

In different countries, other dates of the New Year are also used, since the calculation of time among different peoples was formed under the influence of many factors: religious, cultural, political traditions, seasonal or astronomical phenomena.