When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 45 B.C.E., he made January (named in honor of Janus the two faced god of doors and gates) the first month of the year. This coincided with the consular year, January 1 being the day that new consuls were sworn into office. Once the Julian calendar was created, it was mandated throughout the Roman Empire.
After Rome fell and Christianity spread through Europe, the Julian New Year celebrations, which often featured drunken orgies, were seen as pagan. A variety of New Year’s Days sprung up. March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was a popular one.
When Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in the sixteenth century, he restored the date of the new year to January 1. The Gregorian calendar was quickly adopted in Catholic countries, but slower to be accepted in Protestant and Orthodox countries. England, Ireland, and the American colonies adopted January 1 as the first day of the new year in 1752. Russia did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until after the revolution in 1917.
Today, this European arbitrary custom for marking time is imposed on celebrated by the entire world in spite of the fact that other cultures have many different calendars and dates for celebrating the beginning of the new year. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to this example of Western cultural hegemony than the Radetzky March performed every year on New Years Day by the Vienna Philharmonic.
Some others though:
- Aboriginal Murador — October 30
- Sri Lankan New Year — April 13-14 in 2022
- Cambodian New Year — April 14-16 in 2022
- Chinese New Year — February 1 in 2022
- Marwari and Gugarati New Year — October 26 (2022)
- Eastern Orthodox New Year — January 14
- Ethiopian New year — September 11
- Islamic New Year — July 29-30 in 2022
- Hindu New Year — March 22 (2022)
- Assyrian New Year — April 1
- Iranian New Year — March 21- 22 (2022)
- Balinese New Year — March 3 (2022)
- Jewish New Year — September 25-27 (2022)
- Mongolian New Year — February 1 (2022)