WTF FACTS ABOUT NEW YEAR
1-5 Amazing Facts About New Year
1. The first New Year’s celebration dates back 4,000 years. Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome, was the first to declare Jan. 1 a national holiday. He named the month after Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates. Janus had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. Caesar felt that a month named after this god would be fitting.
2. Ethiopia has 13 months. Their current year is still 2013 and they celebrate New Years on September 11.
3. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was introduced to Japan by German POWs in WWI (who played it for them), and it is now a national tradition to perform it every New Year’s.
4. The ancient Hawaiian New Year was four months long, war was forbidden, people stopped working, and the people spent time dancing, feasting and having a good time.
5. In Korea and some other Asian countries, when you are born, you are considered one year old and everyone’s age increases one year on New Year’s. So if you were born on December 29th, on New Year’s day, you will be considered 2 years old.
6-10 Amazing Facts About New Year
6. There is a music festival every New Year’s eve in the Antarctic called ‘icestock’
7. Russians celebrate the New Year twice, once on January 1st and then again on January 14th.
8. On New Year’s Day in Akita, Japan there is a tradition where men dress as mountain demons, get drunk, and terrorize children for being lazy or disobeying their parents.
9. Some people wear adult diapers while celebrating New Year at Time Square due to the lack of toilets. Source
10. Be sure to eat leafy greens on New Year’s. Tradition says that the more leafy greens a person eats, the more prosperity he or she will experience (what an incentive for staying healthy!). Tradition also says that legumes bring prosperity because beans and peas look like coins. No wonder why so many people eat black eyed peas on Jan. 1.
11-15 Amazing Facts About New Year
11. When religion was suppressed in Soviet Russia, Santa/St. Nick was replaced with Grandfather Frost, called the spirit of winter, who brought gifts on New Year’s and placed them under the “New Year tree”
12. Every December 25th a town in Peru celebrates “Takanakuy”. Men, women, and children settle grudges with fistfights. Then everyone goes drinking together, ready to start the New Year with a clean slate. Source
13. After the French revolution, France briefly used a new calendar based on a decimal system; 10 days a week, 10 hours a day, 100 minutes per hour and 100 seconds per minute, and starting at Year 1.
14. In 2010, a “Black Widow” suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year’s Eve, but was killed when a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her, but nobody else.
15. Many people ring in New Year’s by popping open a bottle of champagne. Americans drink close to 360 million glasses of sparkling wine during this time. The bubbly stuff dates back to the 17th century, when the cork was invented.
16-20 Amazing Facts About New Year
16. Hogmanay is the term for New Year’s Eve in Scotland. In a place called Stonehaven, it is honored through fireballs swinging and first-footing into a friend or neighbor’s threshold.
17. There is a 1000-year-long song in the making known as “Longplayer.” The song began on Jan. 1, 2000 and will continue until Dec. 31, 2999, where it will come back to the starting point of the song and begin again.
18. In Thailand, they celebrate their traditional New Year’s Day with a state sponsored multiple day water fight.
19. Remember the last scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Harry references a song after he and Sally kiss? It wasAuld Lang Syne, a song traditionally sung at the end of New Year’s parties. Poet Robert Burns wrote it in 1788. Though most people do not know the words to Auld Lang Syne, the overall message is that people have to remember their loved ones, dead or alive, and keep them close in their hearts.
20. Prior to 1753, Britain and its possessions celebrated the New Year on March 25 (Annunciation Day). Furthermore, 1752 only lasted nine months, as the dates from 01/01 to 03/24 (as well as September 3 to 13) were skipped in order for 1753 to begin on 01/01 like in other countries.
21-25 Amazing Facts About New Year
21. North Korea does not use the normal Gregorian calendar like most of the world. Instead it uses a different calendar system called the Juche calendar for numbering the years and year one of this calendar began on Kim Il Sung’s (The founder of North Korea) birthday.
22. On New Year’s Eve, residents in a small neighborhood in Johannesburg, South Africa collect old appliances, carry them up to apartment building rooftops and toss them down to the streets far below. Source
24. Finnish people have a weird tradition which goes by the name molybdomancy. This is all about telling fortunes. A small amount of led is melted in a small pan using a small stove. The melted metal is then thrown into a bowl full of cold water. The liquid metal solidifies and the resulting shape of the solid metal is then analyzed in candle light to tell the fortune of a person in the coming year.
25. Spanish tradition is to eat 12 grapes at midnight of 31st December. While eating these grapes, Spaniards will make wishes. This tradition is believed to bring good luck for those who practice it. This grape eating tradition started back in 1895.
26-30 Amazing Facts About New Year
26. Then we have Japan where the bells in Buddhist Temples are rung 108 times. They do this to welcome the God of New Year known as Toshigami.
27. The most common New Year resolutions include ‘quit smoking’, ‘lose weight’, ‘stay healthy and fit’, ‘save more money’ and ‘get (more) organized’.
28. The Dutch people launch fireworks and burn Christmas tree bonfires on street during the New Year Eve. The reason they do this is that burning Christmas tree bonfires signify purging of the old and launching fireworks refer to welcoming the new.
29. America has another pretty popular New Year tradition, which is known as the Rose Bowl. The tradition started back in 1890 featuring the Rose Parade is California’s Pasadena. The parade features floats festooned with eighteen (18) million flowers.
30. Instead of lowering a giant ball of lights on New Year’s Eve, Brasstown, North Carolina lowers a possum. It’s known as “The Possum Drop”
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