The Origin of New Year’s Day

　　The adoption of the Gregorian calendar by our government began in the Republic of China. Therefore, in China, the history of New Year’s Day is less than a hundred years.

　　On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen was sworn in as the provisional president in Nanjing, announcing the establishment of the provisional government of the Republic of China. At the same time, the "Declaration of the Provisional President" was issued, and the time at the end of the declaration was "New Year’s Day of the first year of the Republic of China". This is the first time that the Gregorian calendar has been used in the official proclamation, and it is also the first time that the word "New Year’s Day" with modern significance has been used. Subsequently, Sun Yat-sen ordered that in order to "do summer, it is suitable for farming; From the western calendar, so statistics ",switch to the solar calendar. On January 2, Sun Yat-sen electrified the provinces to change their calendars, and took January 1, 1912 as the beginning of the founding of the Republic of China.

　　From then on, China began to adopt the western calendar, taking January 1 of the Gregorian calendar as the New Year’s Day. Throughout the Republic of China, in fact, in the daily life of our people, the traditional lunar calendar was still used, but the first day of the first lunar month was generally called the Spring Festival. Since then, New Year’s Day and Spring Festival have been divided into two festivals, but New Year’s Day is still often used as a synonym for Spring Festival. For example, in January 1930, when Mao Zedong commanded the Red Army to fight in Jiangxi, he wrote a poem "Dream of New Year’s Day" with the words: "Ninghua, Cleanliness, Naturalization, and the roads are deep and slippery. Where to go today, pointing to Wuyi Mountain. Under the mountain, the red flag is picturesque. " New Year’s Day here means the same as Spring Festival.

　　At the beginning of the Gregorian calendar in China, Lu Xun wrote an article "Habits and Reform", in which he said: "Even the unemployed people in Shanghai and employees of the company lamented, or it was very inconvenient for farmers to cultivate, or it was very inconvenient for seagoing ships to wait for the tide. Therefore, we actually think of farmers in the countryside and boats at sea who have been irrelevant for a long time. This is really like fraternity. "

　　On September 27, 1949, the first plenary session of the China People’s Political Consultative Conference resolved: "The chronology of People’s Republic of China (PRC) adopts the AD chronology method." As a result, the Chinese government has adopted a more thorough method of AD chronology, and all government announcements, statistical reports, newspaper mastheads, etc. adopt the Gregorian calendar. The traditional lunar calendar in China has completely disappeared from official documents except that it is marked behind the Gregorian calendar in the headlines of important newspapers. The New Year’s Day holiday was also stipulated as one of the four legal holidays in China in the "National Holidays and Remembrance Days" adopted at the meeting of the Special Council (now the State Council) on December 23rd, 1949. Today, the calendar year and New Year’s Day festivals have gradually become universal, popular and stable among Chinese people. New Year’s Day and Spring Festival are no longer mixed in appellation. For example, in 1952, President Mao Zedong’s Speech at the New Year’s Day Group Meeting, New Year’s Day here refers to the Gregorian New Year’s Day.

　　New Year’s Day is an international festival, and different nationalities have different stories about the origin of New Year’s Day. It was the ancient Egyptians who first named New Year’s Day. Because of the need to calculate the Nile flood cycle, astronomy and solar calendar in ancient Egypt came into being. 7000 years ago, after long-term observation, the ancient Egyptians found that whenever Sirius rose with the sun, the Nile rose immediately, and it was always about 365 days before the next time. So ancient Egypt took the day when the Nile rose as the beginning of the new year, which was called the "Rising Water New Year". This is about the earliest origin of New Year’s Day.

　　Today’s Gregorian calendar, named after its universal use in all countries in the world, is a kind of solar calendar that people are most familiar with, also known as western calendar, solar calendar and Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar adopts the chronological method, which is calculated from the year when Jesus was born, which is closely related to the prosperity of Christianity. This calendar is saturated with the civilization created by human beings for thousands of years. After learning the essence of the Egyptian calendar, the ancient Romans formulated a more accurate julian calendar during the reign of Julius Caesar. With the expansion of Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity, julian calendar spread all over the world. On March 1st, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar and decided to adopt the plan of Italian doctor Lirio. In 400 years, the three extra leap years in julian calendar were eliminated, with an average annual length of 5: 49: 12 on 365 days, 26 seconds longer than the return. Although according to this calculation, there will still be an error of one day after about 3000 years, but this accuracy is quite remarkable. This is the origin of the Gregorian calendar we use today, also known as the Gregorian calendar.

　　Due to the influence of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, British, German, American and other Christian countries in the last 500 years, and because of the relative accuracy of the Gregorian calendar, the calendar method of the year of the AD has been adopted by countries all over the world. As a holiday, New Year’s Day is not comparable to Christmas in the west and Spring Festival in China, but it has become a worldwide holiday because of its secularity and non-religion.

　　Due to the different longitude positions of countries in the world, the time of celebrating New Year’s Day is different in different countries, so the date of New Year’s Day is different. For example, Tonga, an island country in Oceania, is located on the west side of the date line. It is the first place in the world to start a new day, so it is also the first country in the world to celebrate New Year’s Day. Western Samoa, located on the east side of the Japanese date line, is the place where a new day begins at the latest in the world, so it is also the country that celebrates New Year’s Day at the latest in the world. According to the Gregorian calendar, China is the 12th country in the world to start the New Year.

　　At the same time, based on the differences between the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere, New Year’s Day in countries in the northern hemisphere happens to be winter, or the wind is cold, or the snow is fluttering, or the winter sun shines brightly … while countries in the southern hemisphere welcome the New Year in summer, and their feelings of celebrating the holidays are very different.

　　
In addition to the above reasons, due to the different cultural traditions of various ethnic groups, the date of New Year’s Day in some countries is not January 1 of the Gregorian calendar. For example, Iran implements the Islamic calendar, and celebrating the New Year means celebrating the arrival of spring. Its season and month are not fixed, usually in the late March of the Gregorian calendar. India starts from October 31st every year as the New Year, which lasts for five days, and the fourth day is New Year’s Day. The traditional Thai New Year’s Songkran Festival (Songkran is a Sanskrit transliteration), also known as the Songkran Festival, is from April 13th to 16th every year in the Gregorian calendar.