New Year's Day

In England the New Year hasn't always begun on January 1st. Halloween was the Druids' New Year's Eve festival, so November 1st would have been their New Year. The Anglo Saxons then fixed the beginning of the year to coincide approximately with the sun's rebirth on around December 25th. Then Most of Europe switched their New Year to the beginning of spring. So, for many years, March 25th was New Year's Days.

In fact, most of Europe had been following the Julian calendar, which had been designed under the instructions of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. But this calendar was too long by over 11 minutes a year, and after a number of centuries this amounted to 10 days. So in the 16th century Pope Gregory the 13th had a new calendar designed which revised the concept of leap years and set the beginning of the year to January 1st. Most Europe then adopted this new calendar in around 1582, even though it meant cancelling 10 days.

The Scots changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1600, as it was obvious that any trading with other countries would be chaotic if they kept to the old Julian calendar. But the English held out until 1752 since they resented a Catholic pope telling them what to do. The Russians waited till 1918, and the Greeks till 1923. Eastern Orthodox churches and the Ethiopians still use the Julian calendar, which is why they celebrate Christmas and Easter approximately two weeks later than other Christians.

While most countries of the world have adopted the western Gregorian calendar for commercial purposes, some have still retained their old calendars for religious uses. Let's imagine that in the West we are in the year 2000. The Hindu calendar is then in the year 2056. The Muslim calendar is based on lunar years and began in 622, the year when the Muslim Prophet Muhammad  travelled from Mecca to Medina, so that the year 2000 is Muslim's 1421. The Jewish system is based on the year of the world was created, which was 3761 years before the beginning of the Christian era. Their year lasts from 354 to 385 days, thus they are in the year 5771.