How did January 1st become New Year’s Day? How is it connected to Leap Day?

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Why is January 1st New Year’s Day on our calendar.

It is a simple question, but one has to go on a journey to find the answer.

First, we must look at the origins of our calendar … continue reading …

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Prior to the invention of clocks, watches and digital devices, ancient peoples used calendars based on the moon, whose lunar cycles incrementally shifted through the seasons every 19 years, serving as an enormous generational clock.

These calendars had different numbers of days in a week and different number of weeks in a month, often with an extra “catch-all” month in the winter of varying lengths.

The ancient Babylonian calendar began with the first new moon after the Spring Equinox, March 21.

The Egyptian calendar was tied to the annual flooding of the Nile River.

The word “calends” is the Latin name of the first day of each month in the Roman calendar.

As the Roman Empire conquered other countries, it found it difficult to sync all the different calendars.

To fix this, in 46 B.C., Julius Caesar borrowed from Egypt and instituted a single solar calendar based on the sun.

It was called the Julian Calendar, with 365 days, the amount of time it takes for the Earth to rotate around the Sun.

The Julian Calendar also officially recognized that the Romans moved the beginning of the year from March to January first.

January was named after Janus, the Roman god in charge of doors, from where we get the word “janitor.”

March was named after Mars, the Roman god of war.

Remnants of March being the old first month is still in our calendar, with the names: September, October, November, and December.

“Sept” is Latin for seven, but now September is the ninth month.

“Oct” is Latin for eight, as in octagon – an eight- sided figure, but now October is the tenth month.

“Nov” is Latin for nine, but now it is the eleventh month, and

“Dec” is Latin for ten, as in decimal, divisible by ten, but now it is the twelfth month.

Rome’s old fifth month, Quintilis, was renamed after Julius Caesar, being called “July.”

Since it only had 30 days, Julius Caesar took a day from the old end of the year, February, and added it to July, giving the month 31 days.

The next emperor, Augustus Caesar, renamed the old sixth month, Sextilis, after himself, calling it “August.”

He also took a day from the old end of the year, February, and added it to August, giving that month 31 days, and leaving February with only 28 days.

Augustus Caesar also had his version of global surveillance to track everyone. It was called a census or tax enrollment.

Luke 21:1-3 “In those days … there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.”

Romans persecuted Christians for three centuries in ten major persecutions until Emperor Constantine issued the Edit of Milan in 313 A.D., legalizing Christianity.

Just as Julius Caesar unified the Roman Empire with the Julian Calendar, Constantine wanted to unify the Christian Roman Empire by having everyone use the same date to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection, the most important event in the Christian calendar.

The Apostle Paul wrote in First Corinthians 15:20

“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.”

At the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., Constantine insisted that Easter be on a Sunday.

This was a defining moment. It separated Jewish Christians — as Jesus and his disciples were Jewish – from the emerging Gentile Church.

Prior to Constantine, Christians would ask Jewish rabbis when Passover would be celebrated each year, which was the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan.

The Latin word for “fourteenthers” is Quarto-deciman.

Since Constantine wanted Easter on Sunday, and the Jewish day related to Passover could occur on any day of the week, it turned into the Quarto-decimanism controversy.

Constantine ended the controversy by creating a non-Jewish formula to determine the date of Easter on a Sunday.

It would be the first Sunday after the first paschal full moon falling on or after the Spring Equinox.

“Equinox” is a solar calendar term: “equi” means “equal” and “nox” means “night.”

Thus “equinox” is a day when there is an equal amount of daylight and nighttime.

It occurs in the Spring around March 20-21 and in Autumn around September 22-23.

In the year 325 A.D., Constantine’s new date for Easter was March 21. Those not complying with his new formula were persecuted.

A liturgical table of church dates was compiled with all the future dates of Easter.

Not everyone was happy with Constantine’s formula, in fact it was a big sticking point between Celtic Christian tradition in the British Isles and Roman Catholic tradition.

The Celtic date of Easter was very meaningful as that was the day Saint Patrick confronted the Druid chieftain King Loigaire – “King Leary,” circa 433 A.D., resulting in a large number of Irish converting to Christianity.

Nevertheless, at the Synod of Whitby Abbey in 664 AD, King Oswy of Northumbria agreed to have the Celtic Church come under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and adopt its liturgical table of church dates.

In 526 A.D., during the reign of Christian Emperor Justinian, the scholarly monk Dionysius Exigus thought it inappropriate that dates were still being recorded in relation to the reign of anti-Christian Emperor Diolcetian – “anno Diocletiani.”

He began making notations marking down dates in relation to the birth of Jesus – “anno Domini,” which in Latin means “in the year of the Lord’s reign.”

Gradually, this method of recording became the dating system used throughout the world, with all dates being either B.C. “Before Christ” or A.D. “Anno Domini.”

In the late 19th century, secular academia popularized the use of BCE – “Before Common Era” and CE “Common Era.”

The futility of this is displayed with the question, when did time change from Before Common Era to Common Era?

The answer is the birth of Christ. In their attempt to ignore Christ, they nonetheless acknowledge Him.

In 567 A.D., the Council of Tours considered January first a pagan date since it was associated with Rome, so it moved the beginning of the year to Christmas Day.

The Council of Tours also made the twelve days between Christmas, December 25 and Epiphany, January 6, when the wise men visited, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

The days were called “holy days,” which later came to be pronounced “holidays.”

During the Middle Ages, France celebrated New Year’s Day on Easter.

Henry the Eighth’s Tudor England celebrated the New Year’s Day on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation.

The Julian Calendar, upon which the liturgical church tables were based, had one slight discrepancy – it was off each year by 11 minutes and 14 seconds.

Because of this, the date of Easter incrementally moved ten days ahead of the liturgical church table of dates based on Constantine’s formula tied to the Spring Equinox.

In 1582, Pope Gregory the Thirteenth decided to revise the calendar by eliminating ten days.

He kept the leap day every 4th year but added a minor adjustment.

There would be NO leap year in years divisible by 100 unless they are also divisible by 400.

For instance, there IS a leap day in the years 1600, 2000, 2400, but there is NO leap day in the years 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100.

It sounds complicated, but it is so accurate the Gregorian Calendar is used internationally today.

Pope Gregory’s “Gregorian Calendar” also reversed the Council of Tours and moved the beginning of the New Year BACK to Julius Caesar’s January 1st date.

Catholic countries quickly adopted the Gregorian Calendar, but Protestant countries continued to use the Julian Calendar for nearly two more centuries.

England was an Anglican Protestant country and therefore reluctant to adopt the more accurate Catholic Gregorian Calendar.

This gave rise to some interesting record keeping.

For example: ships would leave Catholic Europe on one date in the Gregorian Calendar, called “New Style,” and arrive in Protestant England at an earlier date on the Julian Calendar, called “Old Style.”

Another example is that England’s William Shakespeare and Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote of La Mancha, died on the same date, April 23, 1616.

But when the differences between England’s Julian Calendar and Spain’s Gregorian Calendar are taken into consideration, Cervantes actually died ten days BEFORE Shakespeare.

The Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts on November 11, 1620, in the Old Style Julian Calendar, which equates to November 21, 1620, in the New Style Gregorian Calendar.

In 1752, England and its colonies finally adopted the Gregorian Calendar, but by that time there was an 11-day discrepancy between the “Old Style” – OS and the “New Style” – NS.

When America finally adjusted its calendar, the day after September 2, 1752, Old Style, became September 14, 1752, New Style. There were reportedly accounts of confusion and even rioting.

As countries of Western Europe, particularly Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English, began to trade and establish colonies around the world, the Gregorian Calendar came into international use.

Eventually, it was used to date all events globally, and with it, January 1^st  became recognized as New Year’s Day.

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