Throughout history, there are some significant events that happened on the first day of the year.  Here are few of them:

1622 – Papal Chancery adopts Jan. 1 as beginning of the year

1660 – 1st entry in Samuel Pepys’ diary

1673 – Regular mail delivery begins between New York and Boston

1772 – First traveller’s check issued (London)

1776 – General George Washington hoists the Continental Union Flag

1788 – Quakers in Pennsylvania emancipate their slaves

1797 – Albany replaces New York City as capital of NY

1808 – Congress prohibits importation of slaves

1818 – Official reopening of the White House

1847 – Michigan becomes the first state to abolish capital punishment

1852 – First U.S. public bath opens in New York City

1862 – First U.S. income tax goes into effect

1863 – Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery issued by President Lincoln

1880 – Building of Panama Canal begins

1892 – Ellis Island becomes reception center for new immigrants

1902 – 1st Rose Bowl game (Pasadena, California) (U of Mich-49, Sanford-0)

1907 – Theodore Roosevelt shakes a record 8513 hands in one day

1908 – First time ball signifying new year dropped at Times Square

1912 – Sun Yat-sen forms Chinese Republic

1913 – Post Office begins parcel post deliveries

1914 – First scheduled airline flight, from St. Petersburg to Tampa, Florida

1934 – Alcatraz officially becomes a federal prison

1935 – 1st Sugar Bowl & 1st Orange Bowl

1954 – Rose & Cotton Bowl are 1st sport colorcasts

1960 – Johnny Cash plays first of many free concerts from behind prison bars

1968 – Evil Knievel fails in his attempt to jump the Caesar’s Palace fountain

1971 – Cigarette advertising banned on radio and television

1975 – Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Mardian convicted of Washington Watergate crimes

1977 – First woman (Jacqueline Means) is formally ordained as Episcopal priest

1978 – Pres. Ford signs 1st major revision of copyright law since 1909

1985 – U.S. first mandatory seat belt law goes into effect (New York)

1990 – David Dinkins is sworn in as the first black mayor of New York City

1993 – Cigarette advertisements are banned in NYC’s MTA

1994 – North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect

1995 – Last “Far Side” by cartoonist Gary Larson

1998 – All California bars, clubs & card rooms must be smoke-free

2000 – Gisbourne, New Zealand population 32,754 is first city in the world to welcome in the new millennium

2002 – The Euro becomes the official currency for most of Europe

2008 – A New Hampshire law legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples comes into effect.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!