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Show New Year's Day Antedates Ante-dates the Birth of Christ by 452 Years The celebration of New Years on January 1 began in 452 B. C, and therefore, contrary to logical reasoning, reason-ing, had nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of Christ. The ancient Roman calendar began be-gan in, and with, the month of March: there wer ten months, the last six of which were named Quin-tilis, Quin-tilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December or, the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth months resDectively. Nu- ma added two months, January and February, placing the former at the beginning of the year and February at the end. In 452 B. C, February was placed between January and March: thus establishing the order of months as of today. The ancient calendar year did not correspond to the solar year and by the time the days of Julius Caesar rolled around the actual and calendar equinoxes were months apart: a situation which Caesar set out to remedy. Caesar's astronomers and calendar calen-dar experts fixed the calendar year at 365 days and because they estimated esti-mated the solar year as of 365 Vi days an extra day was to be added add-ed every fourth year. This Julian calendar was effective, by decree of Caesar, on January 1, 46 B. C. Actually, the earth goes around the sun in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, min-utes, and 46 seconds: and by 1582 A. D., the Julian calendar was 10 days behind the sun. Pope Gregory XIII remedied the situation by ordering or-dering that the calendar play leap frog and the intervening days between be-tween October 5 and October 15, 1582, were lost forever. In order to prevent repetitions of the sun running away from the calendar cal-endar and vice versa, Pope Gregory decided that a leap year should be omitted now and then: hence only those years divisible by four exclusive ex-clusive of years numbering the centuries cen-turies should have 366 days, and the century-marking years shall be leap years only if divisible by four after the ciphers have been omitted. The Gregorian calendar has been officially adopted in most countries of the civilized world: however, many creeds and peoples still celebrate cele-brate their religious and traditional festivals in accordance with ancient calendars. Pre-Christian Roman inaugurated the new year by offering sacrifices to the gods, exchanging greetings, and bestowing gifts. During the early Christian centuries, New Year's festivities persisted and became be-came so boisterous that the faithful were forbidden to participate therein. there-in. After December 25 had been established es-tablished as the day of nativity, the church made January 1 a religious festival honoring the circumcision of Jesus: the day being thus observed In the Roman church since 487, and In the Anglican church since 1549. |
