the Jimielson radio network. The thoughts of opinions of this program are strictly those of the host and the guests, not necessarily shared by anyone in the universe, let alone shared by the host and the guest. Dimension, a measurable extent of some kind, such as length, breadth, depth, or height, an aspect or feature of a situation, problem, or thing, fear, an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or threat, knowledge, facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education, the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, awareness of familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation, imagination, the faculty or action of forming new ideas or images or concepts or external objects not present to the senses, the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful, the part of the mind that imagines things, a dimension of vast as space and as is timeless as infinity, between light and dark, somewhere in the middle of science and superstition, lying between fear and knowledge, the dimension of imagination. Welcome to The Daily Planet, I am your host, Jimielson, and I have got 30 new years facts, little things in a little tidbit, little trinkets, little trivia pieces that I just wanna share with you.
Again, I found these at GoodHousekeeping.com, I'm gonna find a lot of these lists that I'm sharing, they're a good housekeeping, but not bad at all. So let's go ahead and get things started as we are ringing in 2022, actually, hopefully you had a great, safe new years as we're bringing in the new year. And baby new year, that's how we're gonna start things off is actually really old. Baby new year, a symbol of a holiday, since around 600 BC, which started in Greece, when an infant was paraded around in a basket in celebration of Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine, the baby representative rebirth, that occurs at the start of each new year.
So maybe we need to do a baby parade. I think that's a good idea, what do you think? You are listening to the Daily Planet. I am your host Jimmy Olsen, and we are giving you some new year's facts.
The guy credited for old Lang Zine did actually not fully write the song. Robert Burns took a Scottish folk song called Old Long Sign and put his own spin on it, around 1788, which is the version we all know today is old Lang Zine, which means times long pass. Also the time balls, they were actually invented to help sailors, you know, the ball that gets dropped at midnight every year, long before the New Year's Eve ball drop on the top of England's Royal Observatory in Greenwich. There was a ball drop at 1 p.m.
every day. This started in 1833. Now this was to help ship captains coordinate their navigation equipment. So it was similar balls, of course, set up in coastal areas around the world to help do that.
And that's where the idea came from, the big old ball drop that we see every year. Now the first Times Square New Year's party was thrown for a newspaper, annual tradition of gathering in Times Square for New Year's start as a party to celebrate the opening of New York Times Square, building in 1904, over 200,000 people attended. And now we have the Times Square New Year's Eve party every year, which is televised. You can watch that and it has been for many years.
And of course, over the years, parties, even before the ball drop, which wasn't until 1907, fireworks were previously used to welcome the New Year, but they were banned because Bernie Embers were falling on the crowd and a ball being lowered on a flagpole was a bit safer. But there are some countries that still use the fireworks for the celebration of the New Year. And maybe they were just too close to the fireworks, maybe they should have done them farther away, and then they would have been falling on the crowd. But sometimes you gotta think things through.
So it's been a spectacle every year, New Year's, except for World War II, that it actually didn't stop the whole Times Square ball drop. A wartime restrictions put the tradition on pause in 1942 and 1943. So Times Square revelers observed a moment of silence at midnight instead as we were at war at that time. Now, did you know that the time, the original ball made from, was made from 700 pounds of iron and wood.
Now it was related to reduce to 400 pounds, which is still heavy of wrought iron before they switched to an aluminum frame in 1955. Now, the now 11,875 pound ball didn't get its new look at materials until the millennium when Waterford partnered with Phillips Lighting to create a shimmery LED display. So it went from 700 pounds down to 400 pounds, up to 11,000 pounds. Things pretty heavy.
These are some New Year's facts for you. It's bringing in 2022. Of course, I will share with you the link that I'm finding these on at goodheastkeeping.com. You are listening to The Daily Planet.
I'm your host, Jimmy Olson, Waterford. Of course, comes with a new ball pattern every year. So it always changes every with all these LEDs. Now, the sphere is made up of 2,688 crystal triangles and over has over 32,000 lights.
It also displays over 16 million displays. In fact, 2018's latest design is called the gift of serenity, which includes cuts that resemble butterflies drifting through the air. So that's what they did in 2008, but that's something that changes every single year. Wow, that is crazy.
But of course, what you can do with LED lights. 2,000 pounds of confetti, also dropped in Times Square, which confetti did not a new idea by any means. In fact, they call it wishfetti. It's something that they started in 2015 that has become part of the tradition.
People write their wishes for the New Year and submit them to the Wishwall in Times Square or online. And those wishes are turned into the confetti that falls over the crowd at midnight. Also in Miami, they actually drop an orange instead of the ball, the raising of Mr. Dion, the 35-foot sunglass clad metal fruit they've been doing after over 30 years.
So every place kind of has their own idea when it comes to what they do for New Year's, while in Key West, Florida, Key West Florida, a drag queen descends in a shoe. A female person there named Sushi is lowered from a bar rooftop in a giant red high-heeled shoe, they've been doing that since 1996. Just don't let the shoe fall. Her shoe fence of a new day, they drop a giant kiss during in the New Year, other Pennsylvania towns and traditions that play off their names like Mechanicsburg, drops a big wrench in Dillsburg, they drop a big pickle.
I think in Iowa, we need to drop a big corn cob or maybe like a pig. That's what I think we need to do here in Iowa. Americans, they drink about 360 million glasses of sparkling wine on New Year's. So at midnight, of course, did you know a quirk can fly at the speed of 25 miles per hour?
So yes, of course it's always best to angle it 45 degrees away from yourself but also away from others because quarks can hurt people. Do not aim a quirk at somebody. That is just common sense. Do not do that, not nice.
The New Year's Eve, the New Year's kiss started out with, actually goes back to Romans. Although I guess I got a little friskyer back then, ancient Romans were created with the kitchen tradition because of their Saturnalia festival. It was a celebration honoring Saturn in the God of Time where all social norms went out the window. Many of these celebrations influenced the Christmas and New Year's festivities that became the focus when of course Christianity took over the Roman Empire.
But I guess they were getting a little frisky, you know? But that's what they did. That's where the whole New Year's kiss came in. Also the nation or the island nation of Kurebati, they ring in their New Year first.
Kurebati, also known as Christmas Island, is located in the Central Pacific. They celebrate throughout the nation each village, the Manabia and meat or meeting houses, where all social and political activities take place. But they are the first island to celebrate the New Year as you start following the time zones around, while American Samoa is one of the last places to ring in the New Year as they get everything taken care of and moving it around from those different areas. So that's always interesting.
When you follow the timelines around to, with the date lines and all that to see who's first, who's second, and right down the area. Which I guess if you wanted to say it for 24 straight hours, you could start celebrating with each one. So American Samoa, actually, the second to last place to celebrate the New Year behind Baker and Howlin Island, which are both uninhabited. Some tourists take advantage of the time difference by flying from Samoa to American Samoa to celebrate twice.
No, that's interesting. So I guess there's enough time to get from one to the other. Also New Year's, very terrifying in Akeita, Japan for children, which we know of that, because you see a lot of the Japanese dress that they put on, like the dragons they walk around while. They have a local tradition called Namahaj, where grown men dress up like demons to scare children into behaving for their parents.
So they go from house to house yelling things like, are there any crybabies at home or are 90 kids around? So they scare their kids into being good for that New Year. And Italy, wearing red underwear is considered lucky. I need to get, I think I need to get some more red underwear.
I need more luck. Wearing red underwear on New Year's, so I guess one pair would be fine. Wearing once a year. Supposedly brings you good fortune in the coming year and also considered the color of fertility.
So for those hoping to conceive, it's considered double lucky. Grapes are also supposedly lucky, so Spanish households carry on the tradition of scarfing down 12 grapes in the first 12 seconds of the New Year. The grapes represent each month of the year, and the rumor is that this whole thing started as a marketing tactic for winemakers looking to sell more grapes in the winter. I have a problem with that.
I'm usually sleeping, I'll be honest. I don't make it up till midnight anymore. So I guess I would have to eat those 12 grapes as soon as I wake up the next morning. Also, pork and black eyed peas.
A fattiness of pork symbolizes wealth, and the peas are believed to bring good fortune because they swell and cooked, which is why they're both popular foods to eat on New Year. So this is New Year's weekend. You should have been eating pork and black eyed peas for some good luck going into 2022. But here's what you should stay away from.
Lobster and chicken. Lobster and chicken are both considered bad luck foods. That's according to Superstition. If it's because of a lobster's ability to move backward and a chicken's ability to scratch itself backwards.
So if you eat either on New Year's, you won't be able to move forward. So I guess that goes back to pork and you should just eat more bacon. So bring on the bacon on New Year's. Also, how about round or ring shaped foods?
They also have a special name, donuts, and incorporated around food in your New Year's meal symbolizes that the year has come full circle. So bagels, donuts, croissants that are usually put around. You could also, you know, even some sort of biscuit. That's round, so that's a good idea.
Ancient Babylonians, they also celebrated New Year's, but they did it in March at the New Year used to coincide with the arrival of spring. A 12 day festival called a key to market the occasion, which was more about praying than it was about finding a midnight kiss. But there's fell more into spring, which that almost when you think about it, wouldn't it be nice to actually do the New Year at spring? It'd be warmer, it'd be nicer.
You know, I mean, I know for us this year, we just had a storm come through and I know many other places in the Midwest had a lot of ice and snow make their way through as well. So yeah, it's been a cold New Year's this year. Ethiopia, they ring in their New Year on September 11th. Their calendar begins in the eighth year of the common era when, you know, where our year counting started.
Their solar calendar derived from the Egyptian consists of 13 months instead of 12. So 13 months instead of 12. The French also had a new calendar during the revolution. This is interesting.
The French Republican calendar was used during the revolution and for 12 years after to reflect the country's new age liberty, it was designed using a decimal system and was also briefly resurrected during the Paris commune in 1871 as we're making our way through some New Year's Eve facts as we're bringing in 2022. You're listening to the Daily Planet. I'm your host, Jimmy Olsen. Again, I do have a link to where I found these on Goodhousekeeping.com that you can make your way through and check about yourselves.
It says, you can also thank, oh, for making a new year start on January 1st. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in October of 1582 by Pope Gregory, the eighth as a revised version of the Julian calendar. It took almost 350 years though for the world to get on board. In fact, Turkey did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1927.
Hmm, of course it's been almost 100 years now. We're at 2022, but still, if you think about that. Also other things, the reason January is called January is actually kind. Well, they're saying it's deep.
It's really deep. In fact, it's been widely reported that the month was named for the Roman god Janus, but it's actually rooted in Latin in the Latin word annua, which means door. The name was chosen to symbolize the opening of a new door that opens when a new year begins, you know, when one door closes another door opens. So we close the door in 2021 and we open the door on 2022.
So that actually makes more sense. Triple A, you know, the Triple A offers a free ride home. So if you are a person who has a little too much champagne for new years, you can usually Triple A in most states. So this is something to really check out.
Most states, they offer a free ride home to people who've had too many flutes of champagne and should not be driving. So if you've had too much to drink, then on New Year's and there's even other holidays that they kind of tie this into Triple A does that. I know that Triple A and there's some other places that do the same thing on those bigger holidays like that. When there might be a little excess consumption that has happened.
A song that takes 1,000 years to play launched in January 1st, 2000. 2000, 1000 years. composer Jim Finner wrote the piece called Long Player, which can be heard at London's Trinity, Bully Wharf. In fact, it's also lined streamed as well.
It's being performed by singing bowls and it is set to start all over again immediately when it finishes in 2000 or 29, 99, 21,000 years to play. Can you believe that? Also, did you know, Antarctica hosts an annual New Year's Eve Festival? Yes, Antarctica.
They have a New Year's Eve music festival. It is called Ice Stock. And probably one of the coldest New Year's celebrations, where you could say coolest and the pun would be intended to spend New Year's, the event is held at McMurdo Station and Antarctica, where the local population balloons to over 1200 people during the summer months. Mm, 1200 and summer months.
So is it like, you know, 600 or six during the winter months? So it's a big music festival, but not a lot of people show. But there you go. There are some New Year's facts for you.
Hopefully you enjoyed that again. I will have the link to be able to check out where I found these at Goodhousekeeping.com. This is the Daily Planet. I am your host, Jimmy Elson.
You enjoyed this and you join all these facts. And the other ones that I do in the interviews as well, you can always share on social media. You can find me on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, my buddy Jimmy, and on YouTube, my buddy Jimmy at 101. So thank you so much for listening.
And also give me a rating wherever you listen to this episode. I appreciate that very much. So thank you. This is the Daily Planet.
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