Calendars: How January 1st Won the New Year Battle

If calendars could talk, they’d tell you about one of history’s longest-running debates: when to start the new year. It’s the kind of argument that lasted centuries and probably ruined more than a few ancient dinner parties.

Picture ancient Rome. March was their January – the first month of the year, named after Mars, the Roman god of war. Makes sense, right? Spring’s showing up in the Italian hills, flowers are blooming, birds are singing, lambs are being born across the empire. Perfect time for a fresh start.

Then comes Julius Caesar, the guy who never saw a system he didn’t want to change. He’s almost single handedly known for creating the Roman Empire we’ve come to know.

In 46 BC, this famous Caesar pulled what might be history’s biggest calendar flex. He added two extra months between November and December, creating the longest year in history. Fourteen months. That’s even one month longer than the Jewish calendar which sometimes has 13 months. He moved New Year’s Day to January 1st, naming it after Janus, a peculiar god with eyes in the front and back of his head who preceded over beginnings and endings and transitions from one room to another. The Romans gladly accepted another holiday- they’d celebrate by making promises for the future and probably breaking them by February, just like we do today.

But hold onto your togas, because this is where things get interesting. When Christianity spread across pagan Europe, church leaders weren’t exactly thrilled about keeping a holiday that screamed “pagan party time.” Different regions started playing fast and loose with the dates – some picked Christmas, others went with Easter, and a few threw their hands up and said, “Let’s go with March 25th, the day the angel visited Mary.”

This went on for centuries. Imagine trying to schedule a medieval international Zoom call when nobody could agree what year it was. Finally, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced his calendar reform through the papal bull Inter gravissimas, giving us the Gregorian calendar. The most surreal part? They had to skip 10 days in October 1582 to get everything back on track. It took a while to catch on (we’re talking about a hundred years or so), but eventually, most of the Western world got with the program.

Pop scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson considers the Gregorian Calendar one of the greatest invention’s ever.

Today, while January 1st has won the global calendar wars, it’s more like a friendly agreement than a total victory. Different cultures maintain their rich traditions of New Year celebrations, from Chinese New Year with its dragons and red envelopes to the Jewish Rosh Hashanah.

Interestingly, the Jewish calendar, based on lunar cycles, is the only calendar actually ordained by God. God says the New Year actually is in the Spring but centuries of Rabbis have ordained it be celebrated in the fall to coincide with Creation.

So it seems, everyone has made the start of the New Year suit their own interests.

–Dwight Widaman