The new year begins on January 26 and continues for 15 days

Happy New Years everyone for it is the year of the Ox

The year is 4706

This measure of time is first introduced by The Babylonians (after approximately 2500 BC not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures. It is often referred to by the Western cultures as the Chinese calendar because it was first perfected by the Chinese around 500 BC.

Unfortunately most of the world uses the

"The Gregorian Calendar. It has become the internationally accepted civil calendar. I believe there should be a revote! It was first proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom it was named, on 24 February 1582 by the papal bull Inter gravissimas.

It is a reform of the Julian calendar and continues the year numbering system of the Julian calendar, counting years from the traditional Incarnation of Jesus.

Oh well I guess most of the people in the world don't even know what the Gregorian Calender New Years actually represents.

For me it is the year 4706 as I like the traditional Chinese calender

I always love your posts.. and I knew about the year....

what does the Gregorian new year actually represent?

It has something to do with Christ's Birth. The inventor at the time wanted to start day 1 with Jesus's birth, but he didn't do it correctly as it is off by a few days.
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In the year 1278 AUC ( a b u rbe c ondita) * , meaning the number of years since the founding of Rome, Pope John I (Pope from 523 to 526 AD) commissioned Dionysius Exiguus, a monk and chronologist, to align the chronology of the dateof certain Christian holy days.

Dionysius convinced Pope John I that the years of our calendar should start from the date of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Dionysius determined that Christ was born in the year 753 AUC.

The Pope then decreed that the year 754 AUC was the year 1 Anno Domini (AD) and, it seems, he completely overlooked the fact that his innovation had Christ’s birth occurring after Herod’s death (4 BC) which is a contradiction of Matthew’s gospel.

Dionysius also neglected to include a year zero "0" and his alignment started off the Christian era at year "1" (Even a child right out of the womb has to live for 12 months before he or she is considered a year old).

Dionysius' error has never been corrected and 1 AD is actually "year zero" so everything in "BC" retrogrades a year (4BC is actually 5 BC). This error has been incorporated into much of our astronomical and astrological software.
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The Christian era (AD), now used almost exclusively throughout the Western world for civil chronology, was first used in 525 AD by the Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus (c. 500-560 AD), who fixed the birth of Christ in the 'year of Rome' 753.

It is generally agreed that this date should have been fixed some years earlier. Dionysius's chronology was introduced into historical writings by Bede the Venerable in the 8th century.

The Roman Catholic Church's Gregorian Calendar (since 325 AD) ignores precession and has always tried to adjust the calendar to pretend that precession does not exist.

As a result, most of us do not have a clue regarding where we are within the present age.

Note: Acknowledging precession probably seemed like a throwback for the Roman Catholic Church.

Earlier church doctrine (pre Galileo) had the Earth as the center of the unverse, as did the ancient astrological model (still does), but the center of the astrological chart is the 'individual' who is situated on the Earth.

Anyhow, after Galileo flip-flopped church doctrine by determining that the solar system was Sun centered there was probably a great reluctance to include a calendar temporal element that, once again, had the entire outer universe rotating around the Earth, which is precession.

The acknowledgment of precession would have validated (somewhat) the astrological model of the solar system.

Nevertheless, 'precession' was simply dismissed, like astrology was, and not incorporated into the calendar scheme.

It seemed that the only 'zodiac component' that was open for discussion was the Vernal Equinox and, eventually, the setting of the date for Easter (the first Sunday after the first full moon that follows , or is on, the Vernal [Spring] Equinox).

oh i could just hug you for all of that...

you rock the boat....

Let us celeberate New Years for another 14 days shall we

Actually I want to celeberate a Chinese New Years in New York one day. It is one of my goals before heading back home to my country.

where is your country and that actually sounds truly exciting

I am German and yes I would love to celeberate the Chinese New Years. I will make it a goal for next year for sure.

alright I now have a reason to go to new york next year..maybe I can stay with a cousin...

It is also celeberated in San Francisco. I am sure there are more states. I know in Canada there are some towns that celeberate it.

I have always watched it on television. Fireworks, Dragons customs, and alot of entertainment is included.

It is worth it just like it is worth going to Brazil, Rio De Janiero to see New Years celeberated. (Not the Chinese one by the way)Talking about some great Samba and custom presentations.

" 30 days has September, April, June and November
all the rest have 31 except February which has 28
except on years divisible evenly by 4
except at the turn of the century
except again for 1700, 1800 and 1900
but 2000 is O.K., as long as you remember that
"October (meaning 8) is the 10th month
and December (meaning 10) is the 12th".

anonymous astronomer

Keep in mind the chinese calendar is based off lunar cycles as well as the 28 years it takes saturn to orbit the sun. Next to the Mayan it is far mor acurate then any of our western calendars. Most of western calendars are based off eliptical cycles. There 356 days, 23 hours, 18 minutes and 56 seconds roughly if i remeber right in a year. A year being the time it takes the earth to orbit the sun once, feel free to correct me if these are not the exact numbers but if my memory from my high school physics class has not fogged over they indeed are if not close.