I haven't been able to find an answer to this.
Why is January 1 on the day it is? Meaning, what makes it correspond to the Earth's location in solar orbit a week and a half after winter solstice? Why is that position significant? Who put it there and why? It seems completely arbitrary. It would make more sense for the start of the year to correspond to some astronomically significant, or at least observable, event. It should have been moved to winter solstice, or even better, to vernal equinox... which I think they do in Japan. Or if they want these dates to midpoint the seasons, then it should be closer to the date of the Chinese new year, midway between winter solstice and spring equinox.
4 comments:
I did a quick check on wikipedia. Although it doesn't state a concrete reason, reading between the lines, the january date might be a mish mash of political and religious reasons (getting the equinox to match Easter?)
this was the closest i got in five minutes of search. you probably have already read this, but this is the best i can do.
This entry was taken from the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar
In the Roman Republic, the years were not counted. Instead they were named after the consuls who were in power at the beginning of the year (see List of Republican Roman Consuls). For example, 205 BC was The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus. Lists of consuls were maintained in the fasti.
However, in the later Republic, historians and scholars began to count years from the founding of the city of Rome. Different scholars used different dates for this event. The date most widely used today is that calculated by Varro, 753 BC, but other systems varied by up to several decades. Dates given by this method are numbered ab urbe condita (meaning after the founding of the city, and abbreviated AUC). When reading ancient works using AUC dates, care must be taken to determine the epoch used by the author before translating the date into a Julian year.
The first day of the consular term, which was effectively the first day of the year, changed several times during Roman history. It became 1 January in 153 BC. Before then it was 15 March. Earlier changes are a little less certain. There is good reason to believe it was 1 May for most of the third century BC, till 222 BC. Livy mentions consulates starting on 1 July before then, and arguments exist for other dates at earlier times.
Every day should be hangover day.
If you think January 1 makes your noodle crazy... that is just the tip of the calendar iceberg...
What about the Chinese calendar? The Jewish calendar? What year is it REALLY? What about the Gregorian calendar? The Mayan calendar?
Heh. what about them? I just want a calendar to make sense. And I did mention a couple others.
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