David Thompson Jr., age 13, of Hattesburg, Miss., for his question:
WHEN DID JAN. 1 BECOME NEW YEAR'S DAY?
Ancient civilizations all had customs that celebrated the new year. The Chinese, Egyptians, Jewish, Roman and Islamic years all began at different times. But the first day of each year was marked with elaborate ceremonies.
Jan. 1 became generally recognized as New Year's Day in the 1500s when the Gregorian calendar was introduced.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year's Day, is celebrated in late September or early October. The Chinese used the lunar calendar, which is based on the waxing and waning of the moon, for about 4,000 years. Presently, the Chinese New Year's Day falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19 each year.
The new year starts on March 21 in Iran. The date of the East Indian's new year depends on his religion. The Indian continent comtains many different religious groups and each group considers a different date as the beginning of the year.
But since the 1500s, Jan. 1 has been New Year's Day for most of the people of the world. And the festivities of the important event in many cases started with a New Year's Eve celebration where the order of the hour was to see the old year out.
Thousands of years ago the Egyptians celebrated the new year about the middle of June. This was the time each year when the Nile River usually overflowed its banks.
The ancient Iranians, who were then called Persians, followed the custom of giving eggs to their friends for the new year. Since the egg hatches into a new life, this custom meant much the same as "turning over a new leaf."
In ancient Rome, the first day of the new year was given over to honoring Janus, the god of gates and doors and of beginnings and endings. The month of January was named after this god. Janus had two faces and he looked both ahead and backward.
On the first day of the year the Roman people looked back to what had happened during the past year and thought of what the coming year might bring. Romans gave one another presents on New Year's Day.
When the celebration of new year first started in ancient Rome, the gifts were very simple. People often gave their friends branches of bay and palm trees. Later, more expensive gifts were given. And many Romans gave gifts of flowers, fruit or beautiful materials to their senators if they expected to receive favors during the new year.
When the Romans invaded England, they found that the Druid priests celebrated New Year's Day on March 10. The priests cut off branches of mistletoe, which grew on their sacred oak trees, and gave them to the people for charms.
Later, English people followed the custom of cleaning the chimneys of their homes on New Year's Day. This was supposed to bring good luck. Today they say "cleaning the slate" instead of "cleaning the chimney." This means making resolutions to correct faults and bad habits and resolving to make the new year better than the past year.