The beginnings of New Year

On January 1st in Scotland, large crowds will greet the New Year bells at one of the street parties while others will first foot a neighbour.

In New York, Americans will cheer the dropping of the 1070 pound crystal ball located high above Times Square. In Rio, around 2 million people will swarm Copacabana Beach for the world's biggest fireworks festival and in Sydney, Australians will watch night turn to day as Sydney Harbour is illuminated at the stroke of midnight on December 31st.

The acceptance of January 1st as the date that marks the new year is, in large part, due to a forward-thinking 16th Century Pope. But the introduction of the new calendar did not take place over night and many countries and cultures continue to operate more than one system.

The influence of Catholicism

Back in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII expressed the view that the previous common calendar, the Julian calendar, needed an overhaul. What Pope Gregory proposed were changes that would align the calendar more closely with the sun's cycle and importantly for the Catholic Church doing so would bring about a standard date for Easter; one of the most important holy days in the Catholic calendar.

The Gregorian calendar corrected the glaring inadequacies of the Julian calendar which had been introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. The problem with the Julian calendar was that it fell behind the solar calendar by eleven and half minutes every year. Pope Gregory argued that to correct the problem two things needed to happen. The first was a one-off progression of the old astronomical calendar by ten days, the second was the introduction of a new system of leap years which would continue to keep the calendar closely aligned with the passage of the sun across the sky.

The Gregorian calendar, being a Catholic driven formula, was not assimilated readily by some Protestant countries. England remained stubbornly eleven days behind the rest of Europe for many years before it adopted Gregorian rules. Many Orthodox churches, to this day, celebrate New Year in accordance with the old Julian diary. Some have even invented their own and observe their New Year entirely separately from other factions of the same denomination.

Nowadays, the Gregorian calendar is the world's most common method of date calculation, but it still took until 1923 (341 years after its inception) for the last country, Greece, to adopt it and along the way, the inconsistencies in the calendar caused confusion. The Russian athletes turned up two weeks late for the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris because they still operated on the old Julian calendar while the French had adopted the Gregorian calendar. The Russians did not adopt the new calendar until after the October Revolution of 1918, until then the Russian New Year was on January 13th in accordance with the Julian almanac. Russian Orthodox churches still celebrate Christmas on January 7th, six days after less religious citizens have toasted the New Year.

Tales of the Orient

Today the demands of the global economy, fast communications and frequent intercontinental travel mean that for the regulation of business and civic life, the Gregorian calendar is the world's most common measuring stick.

Many countries, however, have their own concurrent traditional calendar governing cultural life. The traditional Thai New Year is marked with the throwing of water from 13th to 15th April. Soaking one's neighbour is symbolic of the Buddhist desire to cleanse in readiness for new beginnings. The traditional Egyptian New Year (Sekhmet) falls on January 7th while Ethiopians traditionally exchange sumptuous gifts on September 11th.

The calendar of the People's Republic of China is perhaps the most fascinating and ancient example. The yin-yang li is based on phases of the moon and the sun's longitude and is the oldest chronological system known. Invented by Emperor Huang Ti in 2637 BC, instead of counting years infinitely, it works in cycles of 60 years, split into five cycles of 12, representing cycles of the moon. The 12 cycles are named after animals of the zodiac: the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The Chinese believe the animal ruling a person's birth year has a profound effect on personality. In 2010, the Chinese will be in the Year of the Tiger. While we will be celebrating on January 1st, their traditional 15-day festival of New Year will begin on February 14th. Due to cyclical dating, the New Year celebrations start on a different date each year.

The Indian or Hindu calendar also has a complex history. For administration, India uses Gregorian dating logic. However, under the new Indian calendar of 1957, New Year takes place on March 22nd (or 21st in a leap year). This calendar was introduced to bring together all the different regional variants. When the Calendar Reform Committee conducted its first survey in 1950, over 30 different calendars were being used. The new framework uses modern meteorological disciplines to define cultural holidays for Hindus, Buddhists and Jainists alike. Religious holidays are prepared by the Indian Meteorological Department and published annually in The Indian Astronomical Ephemeris. Typically, though, many regions and religions still use their own calendars.

So While we 'tak a cup o kindness' on January 1st, many of our friends worldwide will be tucked up in bed awaiting their own festivities some still months away.