New Year's Eve is an international celebration that takes place Dec. 31 to recognize the start of a new Gregorian calendar year. Celebrations typically take place in the evening and run through midnight, with the most common traditions unfolding as the year passes from one to the next. In the US, New Year's Day is a federal holiday, though New Year's Eve is not.
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Rather than celebrating in winter, the Babylonians honored the vernal equinox, a day in late March with equal amounts of darkness and light that signaled the start of a new year. They celebrated with Akitu, an 11-day festival.
In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, which established Jan. 1 as the beginning of the new year. The month was named after Janus, the Roman god of transitions, who had two faces—one looking back at the past, the other forward to the future. While the Babylonians also made promises as part of their celebration of the new year, the Roman tradition became more focused on looking backwards to plan for the coming year.
England followed the Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, which had an inaccurate method of calculating leap years. Because of that, New Year’s Day eventually slipped into the spring and was linked with the Christian festival of the Annunciation, which was on March 25. That date carried over to the American colonies, which didn’t change the first day of the new year until 1752, after England adopted the newer Gregorian calendar.
The paper moved to the area, originally called Longacre Square, in 1904 and lobbied the city to rename it after the publication. The paper’s publisher, Alfred Ochs, threw a massive all-day party on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the opening of the paper’s headquarters, establishing the location as a destination for the holiday.
In 1906, the city banned fireworks displays, forcing the Times Square celebration to find a new centerpiece. The Times commissioned Jacob Starr, a Ukrainian immigrant who worked for Strauss Signs, to develop an ornament. He returned with the now-iconic New Year’s ball.
Robert Wauchope, a member of the Royal Navy, developed the contraption in 1818 so crews could know the time while out at sea. The ball would descend at the same time every day, allowing ships to set their clocks accordingly.
The first iteration was made of iron and wood, weighing in at 700 pounds. The 2025 version is made of 5,280 crystals and 32,256 LED lights and weighs a whopping 12,350 pounds.
Dick Clark started hosting his “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” show in 1972, which has become an annual television staple. This compilation includes five decades' worth of ball drops, allowing you to watch how the tradition subtly evolved.
From 1981 to 1988, the sparkling ball was replaced by a “big apple” to promote the city’s “I Love New York” tourism campaign. This broadcast is from the apple’s first year, where one announcer proclaims, “It’s great! It’s beautiful!”
There’s more out there than the Times Square ball drop. This list ranks the best of the rest, including the Great Pinecone Drop in Arizona, the Lebanon Bologna Drop in Pennsylvania, and the Pickle Drop in North Carolina.
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