Happy NewYears! 🎉 Ever wonder why today, January 1, is the beginning of the new year? Look no further!
Humans throughout history have begun their years on so many different days that the alternatives, to quote late British historian A. F. Pollard, are “” Jan. 1 is the most familiar to Americans and most of Western civilization, and its recognition continues to grow around the world. But had the winding road of the past two millenia run another course, it’s possible we would now be planning to ring in 2021 on any number of dates.
Why, out of these and so many other options, did Jan. 1 emerge as the near-ubiquitous New Year’s Day of modern times?The story begins with the Romans, who, unlike many of their predecessors, didn’t tie their New Year to an astronomical event. Instead, the calendar for this civically-minded republic reset on the same day as the terms for its highest elected political office,.
. In theory, it could be inserted every so often as “a stopgap to jolt the calendar back into correct alignment with the solar year,” Overtoom says. In practice, though, it became a tool for corrupt pontifices to manipulate the calendar whenever they wished to extend the terms of their political allies. “It’s a system that’s very hard to calculate and very, very easy to abuse,” Overtoom says.took charge of Rome, in 46 B.C., he had on his hands not only a civil war but also a temporal crisis.
Borrowing from his homeland, Sosigenes introduced the state-of-the-art 365-day calendar. One of its most notable features was the leap day, designed to offset the extra day that accumulates every four years because the solar year is actually slightly longer than 365 days.