Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Every Month Is a New Year Celebrations around the World by Marilyn Singer started as an ambitious idea. …to create a free encyclopedia, written by volunteers, for everyone in the world. It seemed impossible. Over 20 years, Wikipedia has become the largest collection of open knowledge in history. How did it happen? People, like you. Made and sustained by humans. Meet the movement. For Wikipedia ’s 20th birthday, we are celebrating the power of human collaboration, creativity, and curiosity. We are celebrating the humans, our volunteers and supporters, who make Wikipedia possible. Netha Hussain. Location: Gothenburg, Sweden. Volunteer start year: 2010. Netha, a medical doctor, wrote, updated, and translated dozens of Wikipedia articles during COVID-19 to ensure reliable information about the pandemic is available for everyone. Recently, she launched a project to improve information about vaccine safety topics on Wikipedia, helping combat misinformation. Learn more about Netha’s story. In emergency situations like this, it is not possible for traditional encyclopedias, or even some governments, to access, filter, analyse, and summarize massive loads of information coming from around the world every day and make it available in roughly 300 languages. This is only possible with a large global network of volunteers and a platform such as Wikipedia. — Netha Hussain. Nkem Osuigwe (User: AfricanLibrarian) Volunteer start year: 2020. Dr. Nkem Osuigwe creates powerful connections between the African librarian community and Wikipedia. In 2020, she organized the first African Librarians Week as part of the ’s bi-annual #1Lib1Ref (One Librarian, One Reference) campaign. More than 800 editors participated, making 27,800 updates to improve information on Wikipedia. Getting African librarians to believe in the power of telling the true African story through adding citations and editing articles about Africans was amazing. It was a call to action for librarians to go beyond being disseminators of information to information leaders in their different countries, telling the stories of their communities on a global platform. — Nkem Osuigwe. Jess Wade. Location: London, United Kingdom. Volunteer start year: 2018. Dr. Jess Wade, a physicist by day, started editing Wikipedia in 2018 after learning about the site’s knowledge gaps. Since then, she has written nearly 1,200 Wikipedia biographies about women, people of color and LGBTQ+ scientists, helping increase their representation online and beyond. Learn more about Jess’s story. I knew Wikipedia was important – although I think I only realised how important lately. The world needs honest and impartial information more than ever before – and Wikipedia is the most powerful, collaborative platform we can write and share that on. — Jess Wade. Tulsi Bhagat. Location: Janakpurdham, . Volunteer start year: 2014. With the desire to promote and preserve his mother tongue, the , Tulsi helped launch Maithili Wikipedia in 2014. He has since authored more than 500 Wikipedia articles in the language. Tulsi has also created and participated in campaigns such as the Wiki Awareness Campaign in Nepal, Wiki Loves Folklore, and Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos, which help fill content gaps on Wikipedia. I realised that there are a lot of ways to contribute to the Wikimedia movement beyond only writing articles. I have been involved in combating vandalism, trolls, and spam. I am also active in Wikimedia outreach events and activities. Continuous learning and being able to share what I have learned makes me happy and eager to continue volunteering. — Tulsi Bhagat. Graham Pearce (User: Graham87) Location: Busselton, Western Australia, Australia. Volunteer start year: 2005. As a volunteer, Graham most enjoys doing “wikiarchaeology” — which means he checks the edit histories of Wikipedia pages to ensure all the past edits have been properly attributed. If there is an issue, he tries to fix it. As a blind Wikipedia user, Graham also helps to advocate for accessibility on the platform and guide other users on best practices. Learn more about Graham’s story. Wikipedia has made it much easier to find a starting place for information about all sorts of topics. It’s been particularly beneficial for blind people like me because access to books has historically been very difficult for us. With Wikipedia, we can now have an encyclopedia that we can use on a close-to-equal footing with sighted people. — Graham Pearce. Ota Takashi (User: Takot) Location: Ishikawa, Japan. Volunteer start year: 2005. Takashi, a native Japanese speaker, volunteers as a Wikimedia translator. He helps interpret events, translate articles, and more. In fact, Takashi says the most impactful thing he has done as a volunteer is translate the user interface text of the Wikipedia app (for Android/iOS) into Japanese. Every time you launch the app in Japanese, you are reading his translation. My hope for Wikipedia’s 40th birthday is that automatic machine translation will reach native speaker level for every language. That way, all the knowledge across Wikimedia projects would be available to readers in every language as soon as it is written. At that time, human translators will no longer be needed. It would make me, as a translator, somewhat sad, but it’s okay in the universal aspect. — Ota Takashi. Sherry Antoine. Location: New York City, New York, USA. Volunteer start year: 2015. Sherry is on a mission to improve representation on Wikipedia for people of African descent. She is the Executive Director of AfroCROWD, an initiative to create and improve information about black culture and history on Wikipedia, and the lead organizer of the Wikimedians of the Caribbean Usergroup. She is also motivated by a sense of community. So, during the pandemic in 2020, Sherry planned a 24-hour virtual event in which Wikimedia volunteers around the world uploaded pictures and shared updates that represented their experiences in the unique time. Learn more about Sherry’s story. Connection had become ever more valuable, and I felt it could be therapeutic. So with help from organizing partners, at noon local time, from New Zealand to , Italy to Nigeria, and from New York where I stood to Oregon and California, Wikipedians came together. We edited about the pandemic, shared our experiences in our own languages, and left messages of encouragement for one another. — Sherry Antoine. Syed Muzammiluddin (User: Hindustanilanguage) Volunteer start year: 2004. Muzammiluddin, who goes by Muzammil, is a living historian of the Wikimedia movement. For more than half a decade, he has highlighted the work of fellow volunteers through countless interviews and blog posts. An accomplished Wikipedia editor and community organizer himself, Muzammil has participated in conferences, established a growing volunteer community in India, and made more than 100,000 edits across Wikimedia projects. Although people from all walks of life use Wikipedia for knowledge and information, many are either unaware or unmindful of the fact that they too can help in creating or expanding the content in their area of interest and in their own language. — Syed Muzammiluddin. Bobby Shabangu. Location: South Africa. Volunteer start year: 2011. Bobby speaks five languages fluently. It is a skill he puts to use regularly in editing several language versions of Wikipedia, with a focus on promoting smaller languages such as Swati. In addition to editing, Bobby also supports community engagement activities, which includes sharing input on a new Universal Code of Conduct for all Wikimedia projects. Learn more about Bobby’s story. The strength of Wikimedia lies in its ability to crowdsource content and its quest to share that content freely. I think this has made a huge impact on the world. — Bobby Shabangu. Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight. Location: Nevada City, California, USA. Volunteer start year: 2007. Rosie’s work to close the gender gap on Wikipedia is so notable that there is a Wikipedia article about it. In 2015, Rosie co-founded Women in Red, a project focused on creating Wikipedia articles about women’s biographies, works, and topics. At the time, only 15% of Wikipedia biographies were about women, and there is still more work to do. Rosie has created 5,000 new articles on Wikipedia, an activity that she says is her great passion in life. Learn more about Rosie’s story. Wikipedia changes people’s lives. It is shifting people’s understanding of the world in a way that nothing has before it. — Rosie Stephenson- Goodknight. Wilfredo Rodríguez. Volunteer start year: 2005. Before he was forced to flee Venezuela, photographer Wilfredo risked his safety on several occasions to take and share photos of his home country. He once went three days without food on a journey to capture the melting glaciers on some of Venezuela’s highest mountains. In total, he has uploaded more than 46,000 images to Wikimedia Commons, a free online media repository. And, unlike many other contributors, he releases most of his photos into the public domain, giving up the right to be credited when his work is shared. Learn more about Wilfredo’s story. I always thought that what I was trying to show was more important than my life, because what I was doing was going to remain for future generations. — Wilfredo Rodríguez. Emna Mizouni. Volunteer start year: 2013. In the wake of the Arab Spring, Emna was startled by the lack of information available about the history of her home country, Tunisia. She saw an opportunity to close the content gap with Wikipedia. Since then, there is not much Emna has not done in the Wikimedia movement. The 2019 Wikimedian of the Year organizes workshops; recruits new volunteers; and edits articles on women, African people and culture, and human rights topics. Learn more about Emna’s story. Wikipedia is for everyone to read and edit. Many people use it as an informative website, if they spot a mistake while reading it, I hope they edit it instead of ignoring it. — Emna Mizouni. Greta Doçi. Location: Berlin, Germany. Volunteer start year: 2013. Greta’s volunteering journey started with translating articles from English and into Albanian Wikipedia. From there, she began training other new contributors and hosting workshops in partnership with universities and cultural institutions. In 2017, Greta co-organized an event called WikiDiversity, which led to the creation of the first articles about LGBTQ+ topics on Albanian Wikipedia. Wikipedia helps the world to be more free and educated. I want people to know that doing little things on the website can culminate in a great impact on other people. — Greta Doçi. Hrishikes Sen. Volunteer start year: 2007. Hrishikes is an active volunteer on one of Wikipedia’s sister projects, Wikisource, also known as the free library. There, he proofreads documents and uploads freely-licensed books. One of Hrishikes’ most recent projects was adding the original calligraphed Constitution of India to English Wikisource, where he proofread the entire manuscript of the constitution, identified its signatories, and for the first time listed all of the artists involved. This daunting task was made even more challenging because all of the text was handwritten. Learn more about Hrishikes’ story. Wikipedia has made knowledge freely and readily accessible to the masses. Instead of information scattered around in multiple websites and offline libraries, now all of it is under one umbrella, which makes our real life endeavours that much easier and knowledge-based. — Hrishikes Sen. Sam Oyeyele. Location: Ilorin, Nigeria. Volunteer start year: 2011. Thanks to Sam and his brainchild, the Afrocine Project, more than 3,000 articles about African cinema have been added to Wikipedia. The project is just the latest success for Sam, a co-founder of Wikimedia Nigeria. In 2017, he helped produce two Wikipedia informational videos that went viral and dramatically increased awareness of the website in Nigeria. Learn more about Sam’s story. In Africa, I would love for people to realize that what they read on Wikipedia is written and added by other internet users like them, and we desperately need them to also join in contributing to this huge knowledge base. — Sam Oyeyele. Mónica Paola Bonilla-Parra. Location: Bogotá, Colombia. Volunteer start year: 2018. Mónica is a linguist and researcher who sees Wikipedia’s value as a tool for social development. She works with fellow volunteers to add articles to the website in indigneous languages — helping preserve and promote the culture and histories of native communities in Latin America. It motivates me to know that Wikipedia and the movement are built day by day, with each individual contribution, and that we still have much to learn from new voices. There are no limits to participating and contributing. If you don’t do it, who will? — Mónica Paola Bonilla-Parra. Sandister Tei. Location: Accra, Ghana. Volunteer start year: 2012. Sandister is the 2020 Wikimedian of the Year, an annual award granted by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to recognize one of our movement’s most exceptional contributors. As one of the founding members of the Wikimedia Ghana User Group, Sandister helped pioneer the development of Wikipedia’s volunteer communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Learn more about Sandister’s story. Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia. It extends into sister projects, global editor and volunteer communities; a foundation; multidisciplinary and multicultural project opportunities; it can be plugged into various partnerships; it gives basis for advocacy – it’s a galaxy. — Sandister Tei. Susan Garrett Weiss. Frederick, Maryland, U.S. First donation: No idea — my husband and I have been contributing for a while! Susan, a college professor, has a son who is an avid animal and zoo enthusiast and uses Wikipedia every day to find new and fascinating facts. They donate to Wikipedia in support of his continued curiosity and love of knowledge. He discovered Wikipedia while looking for information on endangered animals a few years back, and now, nearly every day, he asks to use his screen time to read biographies or read about animals or the world’s zoos on Wikipedia. What a gift your website is – it lets him explore new subjects daily. Nearly every dinnertime conversation includes new information gleaned from Wikipedia. — Susan Garrett Weiss. Chinese New Year Celebrations (2021): Day-by-Day Guide. Chinese New Year is celebrated for sixteen days (from Chinese New Year's Eve to the Lantern Festival). The preparations start seven days before Chinese New Year's Eve. Many celebration activities for this period are traditional customs, but some are quite new. Here is a daily guide to tell you how Chinese people celebrate Chinese New Year in 2021. Pre-Chinese New Year Preparations (Jan. 20–Feb. 10, 2021) Jan. 20, 2021: Laba Festival. Some Chinese start to celebrate and prepare for New Year as early as day 8 of the 12 th month of the lunar calendar. This is a festival called Laba ( 腊八 Làbā /laa-baa/ '12th lunar month' + '8'). In 2021, it corresponds to January 20. Feb. 4, 2021: House-Cleaning. Beginning on the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month Chinese people carry out a thorough ‘winter-cleaning’ of their houses. This is called "sweeping away the dust", and represents a wish to put away old things, bid farewell to the old year, and welcome in the New Year. Feb. 4–10, 2021: New Year Shopping. Before Chinese New Year’s Eve, people buy New Year’s food and snacks, New Year's decorations, and New Year's clothes. Chinese New Year in China, like Christmas, is a boom time for shopping . Chinese people may be thrifty most of the time, but they seem to spend generously during their traditional festivals. For example, they buy everyone new clothes for the festival, whether they need them or not. On the days leading up to the festival, there are many New Year's street markets. Chinese New Year's Eve (Feb. 11, 2021): 7 Activities and Celebrations. 1. Putting Up New Year Decorations. Although some people decorate their houses several days before the festival, most people do it on New Year's Eve. Houses are decorated with red lanterns, red couplets, paper Cutouts, and New Year's paintings. Putting up those decorations are thought to keep evil away and pray for blessing, longevity, health, and peace. 2021 is the Year of the Ox, so ox images will appear on decorations. 2. Offering Sacrifices to Ancestors. Offering sacrifices to ancestors shows respect and piety. In addition, ancestral spirits are believed to protect their descendants and help them become prosperous. Many worships on New Year's Eve, before the reunion dinner, to show that they are letting their ancestors "eat" first. Offerings of meat, wine, joss sticks, and joss paper are placed in front of the shrine/grave. 3. Enjoying a Reunion Dinner. The New Year's Eve Feast is a "must-do" dinner with all family members reuniting. Chinese try very hard to make this family event, often traveling long distances. This is the main reason for the huge travel stress throughout China. Big families including several generations sit at round tables and enjoy the food and time together. Dishes with lucky meanings must be included in the dinner such as fish, dumplings, niangao (sticky rice cake), and spring rolls. Many New Year foods are symbolic. 4. Watching CCTV's New Year Gala. It's become customary for many families to watch the CCTV New Year Gala while having their dinner. The Gala starts at 8 pm and ends when the Chinese New Year arrives at midnight. It features traditional, folk, and pop performances from China's best singers, dancers, and acrobats. 5. Giving Red Envelopes (Lucky Money) to Kids. Parents usually give their children red envelopes after the reunion dinner, wishing them health, growth, and good studies in the coming year. Money in red envelopes is believed to bring good luck, as red is China's lucky color, so it's called lucky money. 6. Staying Up Late.

This custom is called shousui (守岁/show-sway/‘to keep watch over the year’). In the past, Chinese people used to stay up all night, but now most stay up only until the midnight firecrackers and fireworks die down. 7. Listening to a New Year Bell. A bell is a traditional symbol of Chinese New Year, and Chinese people believe that ringing a large bell can drive away bad luck and bring good fortune. At midnight on New Year’s Eve some people like to go to large squares or temples where huge bells are rung. In recent years people have begun to go to mountain temples to wait for the first ringing of a bell in the New Year. Chinese New Year's Day (Feb. 12, 2021) Chinese people believe that what they do on the first day of the lunar year will affect their luck during that year. 1. Setting Off Firecrackers and Fireworks. The moment New Year arrives there is a cacophony of fireworks and firecrackers all around, even in rural China. Families stay up for this joyful moment. In many rural areas, it's customary to set off firecrackers before dinner, each day from New Year's Eve to day 3 of CNY. See Why Chinese New Year Must Have Firecrackers. It's believed that the louder the firecrackers, the better and luckier it will be for business and farming in the coming year. Kids, with (mini) firecrackers in one hand and a lighter in another, cheerfully celebrate by throwing the small explosives one-by-one on the street whilst plugging their ears. 2. Putting on New Clothes and Extending New Year Greetings.

On the first day of New Year, Chinese people put on new clothes, and say "gongxi" (恭喜/gong-sshee/literally ‘respectful joy’, meaning 'greetings' or 'best wishes'), wishing each other good luck and happiness in the New Year. It is customary for the younger generation to visit their elders, and wish them health and longevity. See Top 10 Popular Chinese New Year Greetings and Sayings. In recent years, a new way to do New Year greetings has appeared, especially among the young. People who are too busy to visit their friends or relatives send a New Year's card, a WeChat red envelope , or a text message instead. 3. Watching Lion and Dragon Dances. Lion dances and dragon dances are also seen on New Year's Day. Once very popular in China, they are reappearing in many places. They are more popular in Hong Kong and Macau. 4. Public Celebrations at Parks and Temple Fairs. Beijing's temple fairs are the places to go for traditional activities in Beijing. Such activities are held in parks from the first day of the lunar year to the last (when celebrating the Lantern Festival). Generally, parks and temples are the best places to go for festive celebrations at Chinese New Year. New Year: Day 2 (Feb. 13, 2021) Traditionally married daughters visit their parents’ home on the second day of Chinese New Year. They bring gifts and red envelopes to families and relatives. On this day, people offer sacrifices to the God of Wealth, wishing for a luckier and more prosperous year. New Year: Days 3–7 (Feb. 14–18, 2021) From the third to the seventh day of New Year, Chinese people visit relatives and friends . On the third day, some people go to visit the tombs of their relatives, but others think being outside there on the third day is inauspicious, because evil spirits roam around. The first house-sweep of the New Year: Chinese people don't clean their homes during the first two days of New Year, as sweeping then is believed to sweep away the good luck accrued by the litter of firecrackers, red paper, wrappers, and other evidence of celebration on the floor. New Year: Day 8 (Feb. 19, 2021) People normally return to work on the eighth day. As eight is the luckiest number in China, most businesses like to reopen on day 8 of the New Year. New Year: Day 15 (Feb. 26, 2021), the Lantern Festival.

The fifteenth day of the New Year is the Lantern Festival (元宵节 Yuánxiāo Jié /ywen-sshyaou jyeah/). It is the traditional end of Spring Festival celebrations. Some people send glowing lanterns into the sky, while others release floating lanterns onto the sea, onto rivers, or adrift in lakes. Regional Variations in New Year Celebrations in China. Traditions and celebrations vary greatly across China. In the north, Chinese dumplings are the must-eat food on Chinese New Year's Eve, but south of the Yangtze River most people eat spring rolls or sticky rice cake. For more on this, read How Chinese New Year Is Celebrated in Northern and Southern China. Chinese New Year Celebrations around the World. Chinese New Year is not only celebrated in China, but also in several other East Asian countries (among non-Chinese Asians it's known 'Spring Festival') as well as Chinatowns in Western countries. For the numbers of people celebrating around the world see Chinese New Year Facts. You can experience Chinese New Year celebrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, etc. You can walk through their Chinatowns and see the restaurants and shopfronts adorned in red and gold, and experience firecrackers, colorful parades, and dragon dances. Every Month Is a New Year: Celebrations Around the World. In many places around the globe, the new year starts on January 1. But not everywhere! Chinese New Year is celebrated in January or February. Iranians observe Nowruz in March. For Thai people, Songkran occurs in April. Ethiopians greet the new year at Enkutatash in September. All these celebrations, and many others, have deep-rooted traditions and treasured customs. Acclaimed poet Marilyn Singer has created a lively poetry collection that highlights sixteen of these fascinating festivities, some well-known and some less familiar. Together with Susan L. Roth’s captivating collage illustrations, the poems take readers to the heart of these beloved holidays. Every month of the year, somewhere in the world people celebrate with joy and good wishes for a happy new year. Every Month Is a New Year: Celebrations around the World by Marilyn Singer. Because Julius Caesar said so. Early Roman Calendar. Since long before Caesar’s time, date keeping was dicey. In fact, the 355-day Roman calendar that immediately preceded Caesar’s Julian, worked on a four year cycle where every other year, an additional month was inserted between February ( Februarius ), the last month of that calendar year, and March ( Martius ), the first month of the year; this was done in order to catch the calendar up with the Earth’s orbit of the Sun. That additional month, called the Mensis intercalaris , brought in the missing 22 or 23 days, and to even things up, took another five days from February in the years it was present. Since the calendar had been designed to ensure the proper observance of religious dates, priests, called pontifices, were responsible for declaring when the interclaris month should begin and end. Since these priests were also involved with politics, they sometimes: Misused their power by intercalating days or not intercalating them, merely in order to lengthen or shorten some magistrate’s year of office, or to increase the gains of some government contractor, or to inflict loss upon him. By the time Caesar came around, the Roman calendar was in shambles, and in 46 BC, Julius Caesar commanded that it be changed. Julian Calendar. The Julian calendar’s beginnings were as crazy as the old Roman calendar at its worst: In order to wipe out the consequences of past neglect, it was necessary that the year 46 BC (called by Macrobius the annus confusionis) should extend to 445 days. The normal number of 355 days had already been increased by the addition of the ordinary 23 days, inserted after Feb. 23. As many as 67 days, divided into two menses intercalares . . . were now interposed between November and December. . . . This year thus consisted of 15 months. After this “year of confusion,” the new calendar really started. Intercalation was abolished, and each year was increased to 365 days, with a leap year added every fourth year ( quarto quoque anno ) to February. The months of the calendar after Caesar’s shake-up followed the old Roman calendar closely and most are familiar to us even today: Ianuarius, Februarius, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Guintilis, Sextilis , September, October, November and December. Along with these changes, Caesar set the New Year to January 1. Why? Since 153 BC, January 1 was the day new consuls in Rome took office and Romans had commonly used the name of the two consuls to identify a specific year in question. Thus, by officially making January 1 start the New Year, it simply lined up with the consular year. As to why the consular year started on January 1 instead of the original Roman Calendar New Year’s day of March 1, this isn’t known. That said, there are references that seem to imply that January 1 may have begun marking the New Year as early as 189 BC, which precedes when the consular year started beginning on that day. One proposed reason for this switch is that January is thought by most to have been named after the god of transitions and beginnings, Janus, during the reign of the second King of Rome, Numa Pompilius, who lived from 753-673 BC. Thus, it was naturally enough for the Romans to eventually decide to make the switch. However, whether this is the reason or not is very much up for debate. Gregorian Calendar. Although the Julian Calendar was relatively accurate, its use of 365.25 days in a calendar year, as opposed to the precise 365.2425 days, over centuries, created a discrepancy in the calendar. In fact, by the time Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585) became the Bishop of Rome, the Julian calendar had lost 10 days. It was this discrepancy that brought about the reformed calendar. Actually beginning 20 years before the calendar took effect with the Council of Trent in 1563, church leaders wanted to restore the spring equinox to the date it was when the First Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 (by 1563, the equinox was falling on March 11, rather than March 21). As simple as making a Papal decree, Gregory issued the Inter gravissimas on February 24, 1582, and nearly eight months later, the last day of the Julian calendar, October 4, 1582, was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, October 15, 1582. Voila! Today, the Gregorian calendar is the unofficial calendar of the United States and the United Nations, as well as most countries in the world. New Year’s Day. Since before even Caesar’s time, people celebrated the New Year. In ancient Babylon, this began after the spring equinox in March, and part of the celebration including subjecting the king to ritual humiliation. In fact, “if royal tears were shed, it was seen as a sign that Marduk [a god] was satisfied and had symbolically extended the king’s rule.” After he was murdered by a small group of his “friends” (“ Et tu, Brute?” ), the Roman Senate made Caesar a god on January 1, 42 BC, a date which coincided with the time-honored practice of making offerings to Janus in the hope of having good fortune throughout the year. Throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, January 1st’s New Year’s celebrations were discouraged, as they were seen by church leaders as a pagan practice. Instead, other days were often used as a substitute varying from nation to nation. This changed when the Gregorian calendar was instituted and, at least in the Catholic nations, January 1 once again became the official New Year, and it slowly spread from there with the Gregorian calendar. If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as: As mentioned, many protestant nations ignored the Gregorian calendar for some time. England stuck to the Julian Calendar until 1751 before finally making the switch. Orthodox countries took even longer to accept the change in calendars. Russia, for one did not convert to the Gregorian calendar until after the Russian Revolution in 1917. The funny thing was, in 1908, the Russian Olympic team arrived 12 days late to the London Olympics because of it. Under the Gregorian calendar we do not have a leap year every four years, since to properly align the calendar with the Earth’s orbit, an additional day is required in only 97 out of 400 years. So, leap years are calculated as follows: Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is. 2020 arrives in US following New Year's celebrations around the world. Stars and musical guests ring in 2020 with Maria and Steve live from Times Square in New York City. When each new year arrives in the U.S., the biggest party is usually at Times Square in New York City – and 2020 was no exception. Although rain started falling Tuesday evening, relatively mild winter temperatures brought out a big crowd – as did live performances by entertainers such as Post Malone, the South Korean pop group BTS, country singer Sam Hunt and singer Alanis Morissette. “We often watched this in the TV and see this and we totally want to be a part of it,” Mathieu Plesotsky, 25, a visitor from Hesse, Germany, told The Associated Press. Revelers, including Natsumi Ishikawa, left, and Minori Kondo, second from left, both from Nagoya, Japan, take part in the New Year's Eve festivities in New York's Times Square, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019. (Associated Press) Many in the crowd arrived before noon to get a good spot before the ball drop at midnight. Spectators had to enter through a tight security screening gauntlet – part of the stepped-up security measures now commonplace for big events in the Big Apple. Thousands of police officers were on hand for the festivities, plus more than 1,000 security cameras, helicopters and drones equipped with thermal-imaging and 3D-mapping capabilities and super-zoom lenses. Earlier, the '20s entered with a roar across the planet as Tuesday night became Wednesday morning. Here's how the celebrations went in some corners of the globe: BRAZIL. Rio de Janiero hosted one of the world's biggest New Year parties, with about 3 million people gathered along Copacabana Beach. Many revelers dressed in white, symbolizing their hope for peace. One tradition includes partying until sunrise and then taking a dip into the Atlantic Ocean. In Sao Paulo, about 2 million people gathered to celebrate along Paulista Avenue. Revellers photograph fireworks over the Arc de Triomphe as they celebrate the New Year on the Champs Elysees, in Paris, France, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. (Associated Press) FRANCE. The Champs-Elysees was filled with Parisians and tourists alike as the French capital welcomed the arrival of 2020. They were treated to a fireworks show at midnight as well as colorful lights on the Arc de Triomphe. The Paris celebration was hampered by transit strikes, with metro rail lines shut down and only a few bus lines operating. ITALY. Pope Francis made a New Year's Eve appearance in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, delighting tourists as he shook hands and patted the heads of children. At one point, a woman held the pontiff's hand a little too long, prompting Francis to slap her hand twice to release her grip. At St. Peter's Basilica, the pope urged people to "build bridges, not walls," as part of his New Year's message. SAMOA. Fireworks erupted at midnight from Mount Vaea, overlooking the capital of Apia. The end-of-the-year celebration was a time of sadness and remembrance. A measles epidemic in late 2019 claimed 81 lives, mostly children under 5. More than 5,600 measles cases were recorded in the nation of just under 200,000 people. With the epidemic now contained, the Samoa Observer newspaper named health workers who fought the outbreak as its Person of the Year. Fireworks explode over Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue during New Year's celebrations in Bali, Indonesia, Jan. 1, 2020. (Reuters) INDONESIA. Tens of thousands of revelers in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta were soaked by torrential rains as they waited for New Year’s Eve fireworks, while others in the country were wary of an active volcano. Festive events along coastal areas near the Sunda Strait were dampened by a possible larger eruption of Anak Krakatau, an island volcano that erupted last year just ahead of Christmas Day, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 430 people. The country’s volcanology agency has warned locals and tourists to stay 1.3 miles from the volcano’s crater following an eruption Tuesday that blasted ash and debris up to 6,560 feet into the air. Fireworks explode around the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, during New Year celebrations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 1, 2020. (Reuters) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. For nearly 10 minutes, fireworks lit the sky over Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, as hundreds of thousands gathered downtown to watch the spectacular display. The New Year’s Eve display at the 2,716-foot-tall skyscraper was just one of seven different fireworks shows. Tourists, especially from Europe and Russia, flock to the sunny beaches of Dubai at this time of year to escape the cold, dark winter. To keep the massive crowds safe, police created walkways around the Burj Khalifa tower for male-only groups, to separate them from families and women. Dubai this year will be hosting Expo 2020, a world fair that brings the most cutting-edge and futuristic technologies. Buddhists light candles to form letters meaning, "Best wishes for a Happy New Year," during New Year celebrations at Jogyesa Buddhist temple in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. (Associated Press) SOUTH KOREA. Thousands of South Koreans filled cold downtown streets in Seoul ahead of a traditional bell-tolling ceremony near City Hall to send off an exhausting 2019 highlighted by political scandals, decaying job markets and crumbling diplomacy with North Korea. Dignitaries ringing the old Bosingak bell at midnight included South Korean Major League Baseball pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu and Pengsoo, a giant penguin character with a gruff voice and blunt personality that emerged as one of the country’s biggest TV stars in 2019. People gather to welcome the arrival of the New Year at a crossing in Shibuya district in Tokyo Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. (Associated Press) JAPAN. People flocked to temples and shrines in Japan, offering incense with their prayers to celebrate the passing of a year and the first New Year’s of the Reiwa era. Under Japan’s old-style calendar, linked to emperors’ rules, Reiwa started in May, after Emperor Akihito stepped down and his son Naruhito became emperor. Although Reiwa is entering its second year in 2020, Jan. 1 still marks Reiwa’s first New Year’s, the most important holiday in Japan. Stalls at Zojoji Temple in Tokyo sold sweet rice wine, fried noodles and candied apples, as well as little amulets in the shape of mice -- the zodiac animal for 2020. Since the Year of the Mouse starts off the Asian zodiac, it’s associated with starting anew. Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, an event that is creating much anticipation for the entire nation.