New Year's Day's Birth Card: The King of Spades

How the card is assigned

5 U.S.C. § 6103(a) names New Year's Day on January 1. Card Blueprints uses that month and day only. Solar value = 55 − (2 × month + day). December 31 is the Joker. The year is unused. Weekend observed days are ignored.

Coordinate: the King of Spades. Card meaning page: /birth-card/king-of-spades.

Not the observed weekday

OPM calendars sometimes list a Friday or Monday in lieu of January 1 when that date falls on a weekend. This page does not follow those shifts. The coordinate is the statutory day.

Other fixed holidays on the King of Spades

No other fixed federal holiday in this set maps to this card.

New Year's Day on the record

In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day is the first day of the calendar year, 1 January. Most solar calendars, such as the Gregorian and Julian calendars, begin the year regularly at or near the northern winter solstice. In contrast, cultures and religions that observe a lunisolar or lunar calendar celebrate their Lunar New Year at varying points relative to the solar year. In pre-Christian Rome, under the Julian calendar, the day was dedicated to Janus, god of gateways and beginnings, for whom January is also named. From Roman times until the mid-18th century, the new year was celebrated at various stages and in various parts of Christian Europe on 25 December, on 1 March, on 25 March and on the movable feast of Easter. In the present day, with most countries now using the Gregorian calendar as their civil calendar, 1 January according to that calendar is among the most celebrated of public holidays in the world, often observed with fireworks at the stroke of midnight following New Year's Eve, as the new year starts in each time zone. Other global New Year's Day traditions include making New Year's resolutions and calling one's friends and family. The ancient Babylonian calendar was lunisolar, and around the year 2000 BC began observing a spring festival and the new year during the month of Nisan, around the time of the March equinox. The early Roman calendar designated 1 March as the first day of the year. The calendar had just 10 months, beginning with March. That the new year once began with the month of March is still reflected in some of the names of the months. September through to December, the ninth through to the twelfth months of the Gregorian calendar, were originally positioned as the seventh through to the tenth months. (Septem is Latin for "seven"; octo, "eight"; novem, "nine"; and decem, "ten") Roman mythology usually credits their second king Numa with the establishment of the two new months of Ianuarius and Februarius. These were first placed at the end of the year, but at some point came to be considered the first two months instead. The January kalend (Latin: Kalendae Ianuariae), the start of the month of January, came to be celebrated as the new year at some point after it became the day for the inaugurating new consuls in 153 BC as a result of the rebellion in Hispania which began the second Celtiberian War. Romans had long dated their years by these consulships, rather than sequentially, and making the kalends of January start the new year aligned this dating. Still, private and religious celebrations around the March new year continued for some time and there is no consensus on the question of the timing for 1 January's new status. Once it became the new year, however, it became a time for family gatherings and celebrations. A series of disasters, notably including the failed rebellion of M.

Summarised from the lead section of the Wikipedia article New Year's Day (CC BY-SA 4.0). Nothing here was written for this page beyond that article. The statutory date comes from 5 U.S.C. § 6103(a), not from this article.

FAQ

What date does New Year's Day use?

January 1 — the date named in 5 U.S.C. § 6103(a). Month and day assign the card; the year is unused. Observed weekend shifts are ignored.

What is New Year's Day's birth card?

The King of Spades. That is a coordinate on the Card Blueprints calendar, not a fortune-telling claim about the holiday.

Where do the dates come from?

Primary: 5 U.S.C. § 6103(a) via Cornell LII. OPM federal-holiday calendars are cited for observed-year schedules only and are not the mapping source.

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