This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Spears Peak AdAmAn Club. The group is well-known in the community for rising the 14,115-foot benchmark evey New Year’s Eve to launch fireworks.
Around 2000 B.C., the first recognised record of New Year’s celebrations was made in Mesopotamia. This happened near the end of March, around the time of a vernal equinox. The Babylonians would hold a religious festival called Akitu, which was derived from the Sumerian word for barley. They’d go through a series of rituals that would last 11 days.
Aside from the New Year, Atiku commemorated the defeat of Tiamat, the bad sea goddess, by Marduk, Babylonian’s sky god. Meanwhile, the Persian, Egyptian, and Phoenician New Years would begin on the autumn equinox. The Greeks used to commemorate the New Year at the winter solstice.
There were only 10 months or 304 days inside the early Roman calendar. The New Year was then celebrated on March 1. So the ninth across twelfth months, or September through December, as we know them today were originally known as the seventh through tenth months.
The New Year is celebrated on January 1st since 46 B.C., because once Julius Caesar evolved the solar-based Calendar. This occurred that after old moon Roman calendar became obsolete.
Another reason for starting the New Year on January 1 was to honour Janus, the Roman god of beginnings with two faces. This implies that he could go back in time and forward in time.
To mark the occasion, ancient humans would offer ultimate sacrifice to the god of origins, decorate their homes with laurel branches, and exchange gifts.
The New Year’s celebrations, on the other hand, were paganistic. As a result, January 1 was dropped as the start of the year. The day Jesus was born, December 25, was then taken into account at the start of the New Year. March 25, the Meal of the Nativity, was also substituted for January 1.
In the Gregorian calendar, New Years Eve falls on December 31. Pope Gregory XIII instituted this calendar in Rome in late 1582. The Julian calendar, which Julius Caesar instituted, received only minor modifications.
Some times had to be removed when the moon cycle calendar was converted to a solar year calendar. Days following October 4, 1582 were thus changed to October 15. You can only imagine how people born between October 5 and October 14 felt!
While the Catholic Church was the first to use the Gregorian calendar, it was gradually adopted by other European countries such as Germany, Denmark, Russia, and Scotland. The Gregorian calendar is still used in many countries today.
Making New Year’s resolutions, which range from accomplishing a better body, spending further time with family, trying to pursue goals and dreams to loving ourselves more. But did you know that the this tradition dates back about four millennia? The Babylonians would promise things to the lord in order to request a better year.
The Romans would then make sacrifices as well as promise Janus good deeds. These include repaying farm tools borrowed from other people and repaying debts. Meanwhile, Christians use the occasion to reflect on their shortcomings from the previous year and plan ways to improve in the coming year. While the spiritual aspect of New Year’s resolutions is no longer present, creating New Year’s resolutions has become more focused on personal goals.
Throwing fireworks or using various types of noisemakers are also part of ringing in the New Year. If you want to know when or where the firework tradition began, we must go back to China in the seventh century A.D.
Fireworks were intended to frighten away evil spirits. They are also thought to bring prosperity and good fortune. Different designs and colours represent different types of luck, such as fertility, love, and health.