It's hard to imagine holding New Year's in the middle of March, but that's exactly when it used to occur. It's also hard to image a year without January and February, but back when people first began to view the beginning of a new year as a celebration, these two months did not exist.

The celebration of New Year's (one of the oldest holidays around) is said to have first occurred in Mesopotamia circa 2000 B.C. The event occurred roughly in conjunction with the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring), usually around March 15th. During these times, the first visible crescent moon after the Vernal Equinox signaled the start of a new year (not the date January 1st on a calendar) and, for the Babylonian's, the celebration lasted eleven days. Beginning the year in the spring made sense to people back then since that's the time of year when thing began to restart and come alive again. In the Spring, plants are reborn and crops begin to grow out of the dead of winter. Nature starts over at this time so why shouldn't the year as well? Made sense to the Mesopotamians, but not all ancient civilizations saw things the same way.

Some celebrated the New Year with the start of the Fall Equinox (Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians) while others preferred the Winter Solstice (Greeks). In later times, influential rulers attempted to introduce some consistency to the calendar and solidified the date of the New Year. Early on in the Roman Empire, March 1st was designated the start of a new calendar year. Having only ten months back then, the Roman year began with March and ended with December. This might explain a few things for those who have kept up with their Latin. The names for the months September through December where originally derived from the Latin words for seven (septem), eight (octo), nine (novem), and ten (decem). Today, with our twelve month calendar, the Latin meanings for the names of these months are somewhat arbitrary since September through December are no loner the seven through tenth months, but are instead the ninth through twelfth months. So why the change? Ask Numa Pompilius!

After the first king of Rome died (Romulus), Numa Pompilius was elected to the throne. According to Plutarch (highly influential ancient philosopher and author), the pious Pompilius instituted several changes to the ten month calendar to allow for the observance of religious holidays and ensure consistency year after year. In addition to designating specific time periods for doing business and observing holidays, Pompilius added January, February and intercalary months which segmented the calendar in to twelve lunar months to better correspond with the solar year.

January became the beginning of the civil year, the time of year when newly elected Roman consuls began their one-year appointments. The New Year celebration was moved to the beginning of January but was still occasionally celebrated on March 1st. It was Julius Caesar who enforced the practice of observing January 1st as the start of the new year. But during the time between Numa and Julius, a series of Roman leaders abused their right to change the calendar (mainly for political gain) and by the time Caesar took over, January was occurring in the fall. Caesar set it straight by introducing the Julian Calendar and decreeing a winter time January 1st to be the official beginning of a new year. After Caesar, celebrating January 1st as the new year went off track for a short time period in some parts of the world, like Europe during the Middle Ages when such partying was deemed a pagan affair, but returned with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar (beginning in 1582) that again named New Year's day as the first day of January.

So today, if you live where they follow a Gregorian calendar, January 1st is a public holiday for you (accept in Israel) and confetti filled, champagned, horn tooting, firecrackered parties the night before will abound. If you are still using the Julian calendar, you'll be celebrating New Year's about 14 days after the rest of us. But for all there are New Year's traditions that transcend. Perhaps the most common are the remembrance of the year just passed, the stating of resolutions for the coming year, and the ushering in of good luck.

Media sources the world over end the year with a look back at the events and notable happening from the passing year. The highlights generally include the most memorable pop-culture events, a listing of famous people who died over the year, the coverage of natural disasters, wars, devastating events, national and international hot topics and a recap of politics in general.