I Didn’t Know That...

Q: Why do we start the New Year on Jan. 1?

A: There are many potential answers and no one is sure which is correct, according to Duncan Steel, author of “Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar.” Prehistoric people, such as those who built Stonehenge, are thought to have begun the new year at the summer solstice. As urban societies developed among the Greeks, Roman, Persians and Babylonians, most celebrated the spring equinox, a time of new beginning, as the start of the new year, he says, but some also celebrated the winter solstice. The Romans--who invented the month of January--shifted the New Year to Jan. 1 in about 153 BC. The celebrations of Saturnalia and the winter solstice included much drunkenness; soldiers and officials required about a week to recover before a new cycle of administration and conquest began. Hence, Jan. 1 as the New Year.

Despite the Roman influence, the date of the new year varied widely throughout Europe. Venice used March 1, much of France used Easter (though the date of Easter skipped around by as much as 35 days), while others used Christmas. England, Wales and Ireland used March 25 as the new year until 1752, but Scotland shifted to Jan. 1 in 1601. Thus, when Elizabeth I died on the last day of 1602 (March 24), it was already 1603 in Scotland, where James VI started his ride down to claim the throne. The American colonies inherited the British use of Jan. 1 after 1752. The standardization was largely religious in orientation. The Gregorian calendar, first introduced in 1582, counted years not from Christ’s traditional birth date but from his symbolically important circumcision eight days later--i.e., Jan. 1--although that date was already established as the beginning of the year in many Catholic countries.