What is the Secret Origin of New Years Day?

Does January 1 make any sense as New Year's Day? Why not March 21 or even the first day after Labor Day just like school used to be. It turns out there is a very convoluted story to answer that question and it might be connected to how successful you are in keeping your resolutions this year.

Dickson, Joanne. ‘Where Did the New Year’s Resolution Come from? Well, We’ve Been Making Them for 4,000 Years’. The Conversation, 1 January 2023. http://theconversation.com/where-did-the-new-years-resolution-come-from-well-weve-been-making-them-for-4-000-years-196661.

Dickson, Joanne M., Nicholas J. Moberly, David Preece, Alyson Dodd, and Christopher D. Huntley. ‘Self-Regulatory Goal Motivational Processes in Sustained New Year Resolution Pursuit and Mental Wellbeing’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 6 (2021): 3084. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18063084.

Hallinan, Blake, Bumsoo Kim, Saki Mizoroki, Rebecca Scharlach, Tommaso Trillò, Mike Thelwall, Elad Segev, and Limor Shifman. ‘The Value(s) of Social Media Rituals: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of New Year’s Resolutions’. Information, Communication & Society 26, no. 4 (12 March 2023): 764–85. ttps://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1983003.

https://billpetro.com/. ‘History of New Year’s Resolutions: Where Did They Begin?’ https://billpetro.com/history-of-new-years-resolutions/.

Jasiński, Jakub. ‘New Year in Ancient Rome « IMPERIUM ROMANUM’. https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/roman-religion/roman-feasts/new-year-in-ancient-rome/.

Magazine, Smithsonian, and Maris Fessenden. ‘Ever Heard of the Bontebok? It’s an African Animal Humans Nearly Destroyed, Then Saved’. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ever-heard-bontebok-its-one-african-animal-humans-nearly-destroyed-then-saved-180955885/.

NCR. ‘Why March 25, the Annunciation, Was Once New Year’s Day’, 25 March 2020. https://www.ncregister.com/blog/why-march-25-the-annunciation-was-once-new-year-s-day.

Oscarsson, Martin, Per Carlbring, Gerhard Andersson, and Alexander Rozental. ‘A Large-Scale Experiment on New Year’s Resolutions: Approach-Oriented Goals Are More Successful than Avoidance-Oriented Goals’. PLoS One 15, no. 12 (December 2020): e0234097. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097.

‘The Octave of Christmas’. https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/octave-christmas/.

‘When Is Easter? | Royal Observatory’. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/when-easter.

Seemingly Unrelated is a podcast all about exploring how everyday things connect to major movements in history, politics and culture.

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