The New Year is one of the oldest festivals of the world,
dating back to the pre historic era. The New Year History itself forms an
extensive area of study. The history of New Year has undergone a series of
changes over the ages to achieve its global form. The urge of celebrating New
Year as a vibrant festivity emerged at the dawn of civilization. At present,
New Year is celebrated on January 1 and it had been an essential part of the
cultural and traditional practices of the different communities inhabiting the
world. This had been the practice for the last few centuries but the New Year
History had its root to yet far off times. Therefore, this is the principal
reason that the New Year traditions vary from country to country.
The earliest instance of New Year is found in Mesopotamian
culture. It was about 2000 BC, when the people of Babylon used to observe New
Year celebrations on the day of the Vernal Equinox that is during the middle of
March. It was the Romans, who recognized March 1 as New Year Day in their
calendar. At that time there were only ten calendar months beginning from
March. The relevance of this fact can still be seen in the names of some
months, which were been set according to their respective sequences in the
calendar. As in the calendar of the present time the months from September to
December are placed as the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth months
respectively, previously they were positioned as the seventh, eighth, ninth and
the tenth months. In Latin, ‘Septem’ means, seven, ‘Octo’ means, eight, ‘Novem’
means, ninth and ‘Decem’ means ten.
The Roman calendar also passed through an array of
rectifications. The calendar was attributed with the months of January and
February in 153 BC, by Numa Pontilius, the second Roman king. Thus the festival
of New Year got shifted to the month of January for the first time, although
people carried on observing New Year on March 1 for quite a long time after
that.
This is still not the end of the New Year History. Several new
calendars were been devised. Julius Caesar implemented the Julian calendar
which was created based on the solar system whereas the previous calendar were
based on the lunar cycle. The Christianity has added up new meaning to the New
Year Celebration by lionizing the Christmas Day, the Annunciation Day and The
Easter as New Year Day at various times. There had also been times when January
1 had been abolished to be celebrated as New Year altogether.
It was in the Gregorian calendar established by Pope Gregory
XII , New Year was firmly positioned on January 1. It was readily accepted by
the Catholics and then by the Protestants and soon became a holiday recognized
by the entire world slowly and steadily.
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