i think we should move new year's day to march 1st.

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 06:53:37 GMT

beecycling@wandering.shop — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 06:53:37 GMT

@aeva Having new year in spring (of the northern hemisphere anyway) is still the norm in lots of places, as it used to need almost everywhere. It makes way more sense to celebrate the turn of the year at the end of winter, as life starts to return. But hey ho, we can't have anything nice.

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 06:49:34 GMT

pupxel@mastodon.gamedev.place — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 06:49:34 GMT

@aeva iunno, getting rid of leap years and the desire to match social/industrial/business time with astronomical time is prob a easier task

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:23:44 GMT

theeclecticdyslexic@mstdn.social — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:23:44 GMT

@aeva Consider instead, 13 months of 28 days each, and new years is its own day without a month, and every once in a while it is 2 days instead of 1.

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:21:00 GMT

realn2s@infosec.exchange — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:21:00 GMT

@iris_meredith @aeva

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:20:55 GMT

iris_meredith@mastodon.social — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:20:55 GMT

@realn2s @aeva
While Rome was just one city, that was easy enough. But as the Republic expanded through Italy, they wound up with more Roman citizens, hence more people liable for conscription, and they also lived further away from Rome. So, if you want to start your year's campaigning in late March or early April, you need to hold consular elections and start the conscription process earlier. Hence the push out to January

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:19:08 GMT

iris_meredith@mastodon.social — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:19:08 GMT

@realn2s @aeva
Not a historian, but broad strokes: the magistrates that could command the Republic's armies were elected at the beginning of the year, and military service happened on an annual basis. This means that at the beginning of March, every citizen liable for conscription had to show up at the Campus Martius (Field of Mars, God of war, hence also "March") to find out whether they'd be conscripted that year or not.

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:16:55 GMT

vindo@mastodon.social — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:16:55 GMT

@realn2s @iris_meredith @aeva start the hiring cycle after Christmas break?

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:05:07 GMT

realn2s@infosec.exchange — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:05:07 GMT

@iris_meredith @aeva
TIL
How did it make raising armies easier?

Reply to i think we should move new year's day to march 1st. on Tue, 29 Sep 2026 03:57:07 GMT

iris_meredith@mastodon.social — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 03:57:07 GMT

@aeva
New Year's Day *was* March 1st for the longest time, as it happens. It was that in the Roman calendar (later shifted to January to make raising armies easier as the Republic expanded), it was observed on the 25th of March in England for a while...