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When is the Real New Year?
The argument for December 31st, Winter Solstice, and Aries Season
Convention dictates that we celebrate the new year on December 31st, which marks the end of the Gregorian calendar year. The Gregorian calendar, which is the standard international calendar used today, is a solar calendar that is based on the Earth’s orbit around the sun. The calendar year begins on January 1st and ends on December 31st, with each year being divided into 12 months.
It was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a reform of the Julian calendar, which had been in use for many centuries. The Gregorian calendar was designed to fix a problem with the Julian calendar, which had a year that was slightly too long. This meant that the Julian calendar was slowly drifting out of sync with the seasons, with the date of the vernal equinox (the start of spring) slowly shifting later in the year.
The Gregorian calendar solved this problem by introducing a leap year system in which an extra day (February 29th) is added to the calendar every four years. This helps to keep the calendar in sync with the Earth’s orbit around the sun, so that the vernal equinox always occurs around March 20th. The Gregorian calendar also made a few other minor adjustments to the Julian calendar, such as changing the rule for when a leap year occurs.
