The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

New Year's Day is not only the day we turn over a new year on the calendar,

but it's also a day where people start resolutions

companies begin new budgets and everyone screws up writing checks.

While documenting our trip around the sun

makes perfect sense,

why do we use this day, 1st as the starting point for

our calendar years? Why not some other day? Learn more about how January 1st

became the start of the new year on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Every year the Earth orbits around the Sun and we celebrate each revolution on New Year's Day.

But what's so special about this particular spot in our orbit?

Why do we use January 1st as the start of our year as opposed to some other day? As we go back in history, most human civilizations did not use a solar calendar.

They used lunar calendars.

In fact, if you look at the traditional calendars for countries such as China and Vietnam, or for

religion such as Judaism and Islam, they have lunar calendars and their New Year's Day changes

its state every year.

Our current calendar can be traced back to ancient Rome. The very early Romans, way

back at the founding of the city, used to have 10 months, and that 10 month system is still

reflected in many of the names of our months today.

Their first month was Martius, named after the God Mars, which we call March.

After March came the months of Aprilus, Mayus, and Junius.

The months after this were just named after their number.

Quintilius, Sextilius, September, October, November, and December.

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