Do you mean who, as in an individual person, first decided to celebrate the beginning of a new year? Or who determined that calendars start with January and end with December.

If the former, I have no earthly idea, but my guess would be someone many many centuries ago. If the latter, again, no earthly idea who decided to pay attention to moon cycles and 'organize' (for lack of a better word) time accordingly. Probably even more centuries ago, long before school and new clothes, etc.

Rusty

I still think the best place is at home!

As for today's quiz, I never gave it any thought and I haven't the remotest idea. Happy New Year!!!!

No clue........but I will guess the Chinese!

Happy New Year everyone!!! It is an ancient individual, if you want to take a stab at guessing.

Probably someone Roman since we live by the Roman calendar. Who? I have no idea.

Individual, Roman calendar...Julius Cesaer? Sp? lol

An individual? Still no clue......maybe a pope but I have no idea which one.

The Mayans....? no...no....George Washington? lol

Good guess terilyn.....Julius or Augustus since the two months were named after them. :-))))

New Year celebration has had a long and colorful history among humans. It was celebrated for different reasons in various cultures and the day chosen was all over the map. The day varied depending on what calendar was in use. Some calendars were based on the moon and some on the sun. It wasn't until astronomers got a handle on a more exacting occurence of the equinox and maximum and minimum day lengths that we could get a better fix on day 1 of the year, and that is an arbitrary day chosen to fit the calendar of the time. January 1 does not fall on any natural occurrence such as the shortest or longest day, although it is not many days from the shortest day.

To complicate things more, it was found that the earth does not spin an exact integral number of turns during one year, thus modern calendars require an adjustment to keep the calendar from slipping. Here is an interesting phenomena: If the earth did not spin at all, it would have one day per year, e.g., there would be one period each of daylight and night as it orbited the sun. Therefore, depending on the direction of earth's spin, it has one less or one more day than the number of absolute turns it makes one orbit.

The link below is one of several discussions (that can be found on-line) about the beginning of a New Year celebration. Take your pick which one you like. However, it seems that a new year celebration is very old going back to the beginnings of recorded history.

http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/new-years