New Year's Eve Fun Facts

The first recorded New Year's celebration dates back 4,000 years to Babylon, when the first moon after the spring equinox marked a new year. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar created a calendar with Jan. 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor Janus, the month's namesake and god of beginnings.

In the first Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve without the legend himself, ABC will honor the American icon with a tribute by celebrating his life (1929-2012). Performers include Neon Trees and Carly Rae Jepsen in New York, and Flo Rida, Justin Bieber, Ellie Goulding and Jason Aldean in Los Angeles, with Ryan Seacrest as the show's new host. What started with a couple of cameras and skeleton crew in 1972 has grown to become the most-watched New Year's Eve broadcast in the world.

When fireworks were banned in 1907—just three years after the first New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square—officials lowered a ball from a flagpole to signal the end of one year and the start of another. In 1907, the New Year's orb was composed of iron and wood and weighed 700 pounds. Today's ball contains 32,256 LED lights and 2,668 crystals, tipping the scale at 11,875 pounds. This year, the Waterford crystal ball will have 288 new crystal panels to replace the old ones, with doves chiseled into them to mark the theme Let There Be Peace.

While an estimated 1 billion people worldwide watch the Times Square ball drop, thousands of others tune in to the widely popular Japanese show Kohaku Uta Gassen. The show features two teams of celebrity musicians that compete in a series of sing-offs. While most of the artists are Japanese stars, past American participants include Paul Simon and Cyndi Lauper.

In the film New Year's Eve, two women compete to have the first baby born in the New Year in order to win a $25,000 prize offered by the hospital. While gifts given in real life are far more modest, most hospitals in the U.S. do reward the first baby born on New Year's Day with diapers, blankets, clothing or gift certificates donated by local businesses. Whether they win the prize or not, any baby born on Jan. 1 is considered lucky, a distinction enjoyed by author J.D. Salinger (left) and American flag designer Betsy Ross.

Though you may not know the exact words to Auld Lang Syne, you've probably at least hummed the tune at past New Year's parties. Touched by the lyrics he allegedly received from an old man, poet Robert Burns sent Auld Lang Syne to Scottish Musical Museum in 1778. Translated as Times Gone By, the song's message is that, despite the pain in doing so, we must remember and toast to those we've loved and lost in order to keep them close to our hearts.

The tradition to smooch at midnight isn't a recent invention. According to old English and German folklore, the first person you come across in the new year could set the tone for the next 12 months. The superstition doesn't just apply to singles—if a couple ringing in the new year together doesn't lock lips, then the future of their relationship might not be all that bright. So be sure to plant one on your significant other when the ball drops!

The New Year's drink of choice is arguably Champagne, and over 300 million bottles of it are produced annually from the strictly defined Champagne region, located 90 miles northeast of Paris. While wine has been produced in Champagne for 2,000 years, the bubbly stuff can be traced back to the 17th century, when the cork, which captured fermentation gases, was developed. Despite popular belief, Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon did not invent Champagne. However, the legendary cleric did make several crucial contributions to the drink's development and production.

If you're looking to rub elbows with the rich and famous, New York, Las Vegas and Miami Beach are the celebrity hot spots. In Times Square, The Standard Hotel and The Lion tend to attract A-list clientele in NYC. Kim Kardashian will be hosting at The Mirage, while Pitbull will be rocking out down the street at The Palms. Nicki Minaj is a hot ticket at Caesars Palace and international house DJ Benny Benassi will be spinning tunes at The Cosmopolitan long into the morning.

The holiday season is known for its sweets, and New Year's is no exception. It's a custom in some countries, like Mexico and Greece, to hide a prize inside of a New Year's cake—whoever finds it in their slice is guaranteed good luck in the year ahead. In Sweden and Norway, people take part in a similar tradition in which an almond is hidden in rice pudding. Honey-drenched treats are popular in Italy, to evoke a sweet new year, while ring-shaped donuts (to represent coming full circle) are customary in Poland and Hungary.

Another food-related custom is a bit more nutritious: Celebrants in Spain eat 12 grapes at midnight to ensure a fruitful year ahead, a tradition that began as a solution to a grape surplus in 1909. (The custom stuck and then spread to Portugal, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.) Each grape corresponds with a single month in the upcoming year: a sour second grape, for example, might foretell a bumpy February. The goal for most grape eaters is to swallow all 12 before the stroke of midnight.

Cabbage, collards, kale and chard are eaten on New Year's Eve in much of the American South. Since green leaves look like money, the tradition holds that the more greens a person eats, the more economic success he or she will experience in the year to come. Legumes are also consumed with financial fortune in mind, as beans, peas and lentils look like coins and swell when cooked. In Brazil, for example, the first meal of the New Year is often lentil soup or lentils and rice.

Thousands of spectators gather in Stonehaven, Scotland each New Year's Eve to watch the village's men swing blazing fireballs over their heads as they parade the streets. The ancient event is thought to encourage a pure and sun-filled year.

In Mexico and South American countries including Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela, it's customary to ring in the New Year by sporting special underpants: red if you're looking for love and yellow if you're after money. In the Philippines, people believe that wearing polka dots—on their underwear or elsewhere—ensures a promising year ahead.

Not everyone celebrates New Year's on January 1. Chinese New Year, for example, begins on the first day of the lunar calendar, which usually falls in either late January or early February. During this time, it is customary for each family to thoroughly cleanse the house in an effort to sweep away ill fortune, to eat Chinese delicacies such as nian gao, or sticky rice, and to end the night with firecrackers. Red paper envelopes full of money are also distributed to the children at this time—one of the more popular traditions.

Are you surprised to find out that the most common New Year's resolution is losing weight? Other popular resolutions include exercising more, quitting smoking, saving money, and getting a better job or education. While the hope of keeping resolutions is great for business—we spent $62 billion on gym memberships, diet soda and the like, last year—by March, the lines at the treadmills start to thin, and the next year, we're at it again.