Theres no scientific basis for January 1st being a new year. So, i dont celebrate New Years. It's nonsense.
36-40, M
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DrWatson · 70-79, M
Many ancient cultures celebrated the New Year at about the time of the Spring Equinox. (Not necessarily on the exact date: the new year marked the time to start preparing the fields for planting.)
The old Roman calendar likewise began in the Spring, hence December is the "tenth" month. The time between the end of December and the beginning of the next year had no dates assigned at all! Calendars were initially about keeping track of the seasons so farmers would know when to plant, and since nobody was planting again until the springtime, there was what we would call a two month gap between the end of one year and the beginning of the next.
Finally, Julius Caesar added two months, January and February, to fill the gap. I suppose he could have regarded them as two extra months at the END of the year, so that we would now be thinking of March as the beginning of the new year, in agreement with all those other ancient civilizations.
But he didn't.
The old Roman calendar likewise began in the Spring, hence December is the "tenth" month. The time between the end of December and the beginning of the next year had no dates assigned at all! Calendars were initially about keeping track of the seasons so farmers would know when to plant, and since nobody was planting again until the springtime, there was what we would call a two month gap between the end of one year and the beginning of the next.
Finally, Julius Caesar added two months, January and February, to fill the gap. I suppose he could have regarded them as two extra months at the END of the year, so that we would now be thinking of March as the beginning of the new year, in agreement with all those other ancient civilizations.
But he didn't.