Weird And Wacky Holidays

Why do we celebrate the beginning of the new year on January 1? We can thank Julius Caesar who in 45 BC proclaimed the Roman Empire would adopt the Julian Calendar, which identified January 1st as the beginning of the new year. By the time Julius Caesar assumed office, it was clear the traditional lunar based Roman calendar in use since the seventh century BC no longer was sufficient. Caesar enlisted help from a renown Alexandrian astronomer who urged the adoption of a solar based calendar. He calculated the solar year as being 365.25 days. Caesar made the needed adjustments to the old traditional lunar based calendar and the Julian calendar was adopted.Fast foreword to the Middle Ages. Because Caesar’s astronomer miscalculated the exact length of the solar year, by the mid 15th century the Julian calendar was 10 days off. This resulted in confusion about exactly when the new year should celebrated.To fix the problem, Pope Gregory XIII commissioned Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius to develop a more accur