Historic New Year’s Day: Why January 1 Wasn’t Always the First Day of the Year

Nowadays, the new year begins in the cold and cold winter. But January was not always the first month of the year: in the early stages of modern calendars, the winter months were not even named.

First, the days of Christmas come, then a week later, the old year ends and a new one begins. The fact that the first day of the year always falls on the 1st of January is normal for many peoples and cultures today.

But when the modern calendar was still at the beginning of its development, the winter months did not even have names. It was as if January – named after Janus, the god of the beginning and the end in Roman mythology – didn’t even exist. This month’s story has since been one of baffling ups and downs, astronomical miscalculations, and political meddling.

Ancient Rome and its first calendar

Almanacs help people get an overview of the processes of time over approximately 10,000 years. However, their forms and the ways in which they were based varied greatly from the beginning: in Neolithic England directed People in the phases of the moon, however, the ancient Egyptians, are in the sun. The Chinese incorporated both methods into their lunar calendar, which is still in use today.

The calendar used in most parts of the world today was developed in the Roman Republic. Legend has it that the legendary first Roman king Romulus invented it, but it is likely that it was based on dating systems developed by the ancient Babylonians, Etruscans, and Greeks.