About New Year's Day
New Year's Day marks the first day of the calendar year on 1 January and is one of the few public holidays observed in nearly every country in the world. The date traces back to 45 BCE, when Julius Caesar's reformed Roman calendar shifted the year's start from March to January, the month named after Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and endings. The Gregorian calendar reform in 1582 fixed the modern date across Catholic Europe; most other countries adopted it over the following centuries.
Most countries treat 1 January as a quiet recovery day after midnight fireworks, parties and the symbolic countdown of New Year's Eve. Common rituals include exchanging good wishes, eating dishes thought to bring luck — lentils in Italy, pickled herring in northern Europe, twelve grapes at midnight in Spain — and watching parades, concerts and football matches. Many people also write resolutions for the year ahead, a custom that goes back to the Babylonian promises to gods and the Roman pledges to Janus. Shops, banks and public offices stay closed across most of Europe and the Americas.