The way we celebrate New Year’s Eve today has roots stretching back more than 4,000 years.
The earliest known New Year celebrations date to ancient Babylon around 2000 BCE. Their new year began in spring, not winter, and marked the start of the farming season. The festival lasted 11 days and centered on renewal, promises, and fresh beginnings.

The idea of marking the new year on January 1 came later, in 46 BCE, when Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar. The date honored Janus, the Roman god of doors, transitions, and beginnings, often shown with two faces looking to the past and future. Romans exchanged gifts and made promises for the year ahead, an early version of modern resolutions.

Many familiar New Year’s traditions grew out of cultural beliefs about luck and renewal:

• Making noise at midnight was meant to scare away evil spirits.

• Eating certain foods symbolized prosperity, health, or good fortune.

• Staying up until midnight marked the symbolic crossing from old to new.

Today’s countdowns, fireworks, and resolutions are modern echoes of rituals that are thousands of years old, all centered on the same idea: leaving the past behind and starting fresh.