In this special Do You Know? feature, we take a look at strange New Year traditions and their origins.
Coustou’s sculpture of Julius Caesar in the Louvre
Avoid Getting Close To South African Windows!
South Africans throw old furniture out of their windows to start the year without unwanted items.
Danes throw plates at their friends to bring them good luck.
In the Philippines, families serve 12 round fruits to represent prosperity.
Many Brazilians welcome the New Year at the beach as it is considered good luck to make seven wishes while jumping seven waves.
Sea waves in Brazil – Pixabay
The first New Year celebration dates back 4,000 years. Julius Caesar was the first to declare 1st January a national holiday. He named the month after Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates. Janus had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back.
That’s A Lot of Confetti!
Revellers leave over 50 tons of rubbish, including over 1.3 tons of confetti, in New York’s Times Square after the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Sweeping up in Times Square after New Year’s Eve.jpg
The confetti dropped in Times Square holds secret messages as it has thousands of people’s wishes written on them. In 2015, “wishfetti” became a part of the tradition, with people writing their wishes for the new year and pinning them to the Wish Wall in Times Square (or online). Those wishes are turned into the confetti that falls over the crowd at midnight.
Robert Burns took a Scottish folk song called “Old Long Syne” and put his own spin on it in 1788, which is the version we all know today. Auld lang syne means “times long past”.
Instead of a ball, Miami rings in the new year with an orange. The raising of Mr Neon, the 35-foot, sunglasses-wearing metal fruit, has been a tradition for over 30 years.
The Moon looks upside down in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the Northern Hemisphere. This means that the “Man in the Moon” is upside down in the Southern Hemisphere and looks more like a rabbit.
New Year’s Kiss
The tradition of the New Year’s kiss started with the Romans. Historians credit the Ancient Romans with the kissing tradition because of their Saturnalia festival. It was a celebration honouring Saturn, the god of time, where all social norms went out the window.
New Year kiss – Pixabay
No number before thousand contains the letter A.
There were active volcanoes on the moon when dinosaurs were alive.
The human circulatory system is more than 60,000 miles long.
Your brain is constantly eating itself. This process is called phagocytosis, where cells envelop and consume smaller cells or molecules to remove them from the system. However, phagocytosis isn’t harmful and helps preserve your grey matter.
Loosen That Tie!
Wearing a tie can reduce blood flow to the brain. A study in 2018 found they can reduce the flow by up to 7.5%, which can make you feel dizzy and cause headaches. They can also increase the pressure in your eyes if too tight and are great at carrying germs.
Traces of hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, sulphur dioxide, and hydrogen cyanide were found in the makeup of the comet 67P/Churyumove-Gerasimenko. In theory, these elements would make the comet smell like rotten eggs, urine, burning matches and almonds!
Wind turbines kill between 10,000 and 100,000 birds each year in the UK. Interestingly, painting one of the blades of a wind turbine black reduces deaths by 70%.
Some fish form orderly queues in emergencies. When evacuating through narrow spaces, schools of neon tetra fish queue so that they don’t collide or clog up the line.
Giraffes are 30 times more likely to get struck by lightning than people.
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