History of New Year’s Resolutions: Where Did They Begin?

Bill Petro
3 min readJan 3, 2022
Janus, on the Ponte Fabricio, Rome

As I mentioned previously, New Year’s Day celebrations began in pre-Christian times, beginning with the Babylonians in March but later changed to January by the Romans.

Where did we get the idea of New Year’s Resolutions and why at the beginning of the year?

Roman New Years Resolutions

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Bill Petro

Writer, historian, technologist. Former Silicon Valley tech exec. Author of fascinating articles on history, tech, pop culture, & travel. https://billpetro.com