How Did January Get to be the First Month?

With all due respect, what did January do to be first? It isn’t an Equinox, It doesn’t start or end a season. There’s nothing about it, not historically, religiously, naturally to put January at the front of the line.

If you examine an almanac, January, is, on average, the coldest month of the year in most of the Northern Hemisphere.    It is the 2nd month, not even the first, in the Winter Season.

It is often the warmest month of the year  in most of the Southern Hemisphere,  where again, it isn’t ven the first month of Summer, but the Second.

It is believed January  (in Latin it is Ianuarius as there is no J in Latin.)   It is believe to be the Latin word for  oor (ianua),  but conventionally it is considered to have been named after Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions in Roman Mythology.

However, it was not the First Month in the year.

In fact, January only became Month one, and January 1st New Years Day, in 1582.   This was due to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.   This would replace the Julian.

There was a lot of outcry, demonstrations, anger, and confusion.

In the 1500s  the length of the year, the position of the Earth in relation to the sun, the astrological signs all had an effect.

With so much of the Renaissance knowledge trickling into the ‘Dark Ages’,  ‘scientific’ minded people saw a need to change the calendar .

Pope Gregory introduced his own calendar, the ‘Gregorian’  which would be eleven days ‘ahead’ of the Julian Calendar.   It was Pope Gregory who selected the 1st of January to be New Year’s Day; the day the year changes.

Most Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar almost immediately, after all, the Pope was infallible and if he determined the date, that was the date.

It took a long time for non-Catholic nations to accept the new calendar.   It was not until 1752 that the British adopted that calendar.

Up until that year the British Empire and all its colonies celebrated New Year’s Day in March.   March, when Ares began.   The first sign of the Zodiac.

The acceptance of January being the first month of the year is relatively new. It is only Two Hundred and Seventy years that January 1st has enjoyed its priority.

This ‘recent’ change is why in some cases dates are a big doubled up, where something might be said to have happened on March 1 (Julian year) or March 12 (Gregorian year).