Part of Europe celebrated the new year 2025

We now expect to change the calendar on January 1, but that wasn’t always the case.

“The story of Christ begins, it makes perfect sense that the new year begins there,” says one.

In 24 hours, most of Spain will celebrate the transition from 2024 to 2025 to the sound of 12 chimes. Where, how, and with whom changes. Not just Spain. The news on Wednesday will likely show similar parties around the world. New Year’s celebrations. Instead of questioning why we celebrate this transition between years on December 31 or if there is a better day to do it, we have internalised it.

However, this was not always the case. Many places celebrated New Year’s in March centuries ago.

About time and things. Time never changes. Not how we measure and organise it. Today, we assume a year has 365 days (leap years excluded) spread over 12 months and that we must change our calendar every December 31, but this was not always the case. You needn’t travel far or follow other cultures to see it.

The Romans’ calendar changed several times, from a civil year of 304 days spread over 10 months that began in March to a lunar revision in the 7th century BC to the Julian calendar, introduced in 45 BC and based on Canopus’ reform of the Egyptian calendar. Julius Caesar’s timekeeping was also ambiguous. The Gregorian calendar replaced it after Pope Gregory XIII promoted it in 1582.

Beliefs and politics. Time management may have a long history. At least 12,000 years ago, a stone at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey was marked with the oldest lunisonar calendar. However, a brief review of Roman (and Western) tradition shows that time management often incorporates beliefs, nature, and power, three of humanity’s greatest obsessions.

The calendar often included mythology. March honoured Mars and January honoured Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and endings. He’s known for looking ahead and back. Diana Spencer, from the University of Birmingham, told the BBC that now is the time to decide ‘this is the moment we start again’ War, solstices, and agricultural cycles have also affected time.

When does the year begin? Now we know: January 1. It wasn’t always that way. The Julian calendar began on January 1, but after the fall of the Roman Empire, many European countries switched to March 25, the Christian Annunciation, to celebrate the archangel Gabriel’s appearance to the Virgin Mary.

“Although Christmas is when Christ was born, the Annunciation is when it is revealed to Mary that she is going to give birth to a new incarnation of God,” Spencer says. “That is the moment when the story of Christ begins, so it makes perfect sense that the new year begins then.” El País reports that in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages and early Modern Age, the change of year was celebrated on March 25, a biblical date.

A significant and gradual change. After the Gregorian calendar was declared at the end of the 16th century, January 1st became the new year again, despite this symbolic charge for Christians. Naturally, the change was not automatic. The Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in 1582, but the meaning of “gradual” is crucial in calendar analysis. Before its adoption, many countries celebrated New Year’s on January 1. Others took longer to leap.

British exceptions are most intriguing. Scotland changed its New Year’s date to January 1 in 1600, but England, which rebelled against the Vatican, took longer. Authorities kept celebrating New Year’s on March 25 until the mid-18th century. Parliament decided in 1752 that it would be easier to follow Europe’s calendar and change it every January 1 to avoid confusion.

Beyond Britain. Not only in Britain do people say goodbye to the years on a different date than we do. El País cites French medievalist Michel Pastoreau’s essay stating that “the cycle of the year is the liturgical calendar.”

And noting that “the most important periods are Advent and Lent and the main holidays are Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and All Saints’ Day,” he adds: “In Soisons, the year begins on December 25; in Beauvais and Reims, on March 25; in Paris on Easter Day; in Meaux, on July 22 (St. Mary Magdalene).”

Historiographers’ headache. “However, we should note that the days usually chosen are Christmas (regions in the west and southwest), the Annunciation (Normandy, Poitou, part of the centre and east) and Easter (Flanders, Artois, royal domain),” he says. Even 13th-century Castile started the year on March 25. Today, this dance of dates and calendar jumps is a curiosity, but colonial history researchers find it problematic.

Between 1582 and 1752, Europe had two calendars and England had two different start dates. The official start of the year was March 25, but many people celebrated January 1 as ‘New Year’s Day’, following the continental example. Almanacks even listed it as such “Gary Smith of the Berkshire Law Library in Massachusetts recalls.

Part of Europe celebrated the new year 2025

By ki0nk

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