~~The history behind American New Year’s Eve celebrations~~
In cities around the world, from Sydney to Amsterdam, the first seconds of the new year are marked by fireworks. But dropping a ball on New Year’s Eve is a wholly American tradition to count down the last fleeting moments.
The first ball dropped at midnight on New Year’s Eve remains the most famous: the one on top of One Times Square in New York City.
Every year as the clock nears midnight on Dec. 31, the eyes of the world turn to the dazzling lights and bustling energy of Times Square. But why do Americans drop a ball on New Year’s Eve? It started off as a solution to light up the New York sky without the hazard of fireworks. Photo courtesy of Countdown Entertainment, LLC
With the creation of standard time, time balls were invented so that sailors could adjust their chronometers, or timepieces, while at sea. With a telescope, they would scope the harbor and watch for a time ball to drop at a specific time, usually noon or 1 p.m.
The first time ball was installed in 1829 in Portsmouth, England. The U.S. Naval Observatory followed suit and began dropping a time ball in 1845 in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Soon many port towns and cities adopted the practice.
It was one of these time balls that became the inspiration for Walter Palmer, The New York Times’ chief electrician, who re-imagined the maritime timekeeping ritual as a unique finale to the city’s end-of-the-year party.
In 1904, New York City’s New Year’s Eve celebrations moved up to the New York Times building at 46th St and Broadway. Crowds had previously gathered at Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan, near Wall Street, to hear the bells ring at midnight. In lieu of chimes, The New York Times company produced a midnight fireworks spectacle to lure more New Yorkers north. That proved effective but also disastrous when hot ashes, the remnants of the fireworks, rained down onto the streets.
When the New York Police Department banned fireworks, New York Times publisher and owner Adolph Ochs approached Palmer to find a new light display. He sought to combine the time ball tradition with electricity for an unforgettable welcome to 1908.
Upon Palmer’s design, Ochs commissioned the Artkraft Strauss sign company to create a 700-pound ball made of iron and wood with 100 25-watt light bulbs attached to its surface. At midnight, the ball descended down the re=purposed mainmast of the battleship USS New Mexico, with a system of pulleys.
The ball was redesigned as new technology and materials became available, Jeffrey Straus noted. As president of Countdown Entertainment and executive producer for New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, Straus organizes television and Web broadcasts of the Times Square. Over the decades, aluminum has replaced iron and halogen lamps and then light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, replaced incandescent bulbs. Some balls have had rhinestones, strobe lights or rotating pyramid mirrors. Computer controls were added in 1995.
What distinguishes the current ball from earlier predecessors is the multitude of lights and crystals. At 11,875 pounds and 12 feet in diameter, the Big Ball has 2,688 Waterford Crystals that refracts the light of 32,256 Philips LEDs.
The crystals have all been replaced with a new design this year, a pattern called “The Gift of Imagination.” Though few see the ball up close, the crystals are carefully crafted with a special meaning for each new year.
The inspiration for the latest design is a reinterpretation of New Year’s resolutions, according to Regan Iglesia, vice president at Waterford Crystal.
“We thought it would be really hard to interpret how to lose weight, or spend less,” Iglesia said. But along with pragmatic resolutions, there are also emotional resolutions that many wish for at the start of the a new year. “We thought it was appropriate to start with the year of imagination.”
“The Gift of Imagination” was the last design created by master craftsman Jim O’Leary. O’Leary had worked for Waterford Crystal for decades. He passed away on June 8 from cancer at the age of 69.
When lit up, the LEDs and crystals can create over 16 million different color combinations. Photo courtesy of Countdown Entertainment, LLC
Technology may have changed since that first drop, but the resulting spectacle has not. At 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, the Times Square Ball will start to descend 70 feet. As it comes halfway below the numerals of the New Year, the ball will go dark, the numbers will light up and the year 2014 will dawn in New York.
“I love that last 60 seconds, when everyone just stops and counts together,” said Straus. “It’s a magic moment.”
“I can’t think of any other event or celebration where you have 100 million Americans doing the same thing at the same time together. Wherever you are — out at a party, out with your friends, if you are home with your family — when that ball starts to drop, we all stop and count down those final seconds of the year. It really brings us all together.”
In Rio de Janeiro, more than 2 million people gather on the beach wearing white attire.
Traditionally, New Year’s is a time of renewal. A time to put the problems of the past behind and look forward to the future and the new year. In Brazil , many people do this symbolically by wearing all white and even newly purchased/never worn clothing. Other local traditions include cleansing oneself in the ocean waters as well as throwing flowers and small mementos into the surf with the belief that if they do not come back, your wish or prayer will be granted.
In Rio, the big event is on Copacabana beach. This is the primary event, although there are other smaller festivities/gatherings in other locations such as on Ipanema beach and more recenty Barra and Flamengo beach.
In London, thousands of people gather to watch activities centered around the Thames River.
Celebrate New Year’s Eve and welcome 2014 with a bang at the London NYE 2013 Fireworks, a free event presented by Vodafone and the Mayor of London. Very large crowds are expected on the night with limited viewing areas, and the surrounding areas of London will be extremely busy, so if you’d rather watch the spectacular from the comfort of your own home the fireworks will be shown live on BBC
The night skies will be a blaze of light and color at midnight on New Year’s Eve with a display of stunning pyrotechnics from the EDF Energy London Eye on the famous South Bank.
Sydney, Australia, is first to ring in the new year with the world’s largest fireworks show fired from multiple barges.
Sydney New Year’s Eve is an annual multi-tiered event held every New Year’s Eve over Sydney Harbour, centering on the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia. Its main features are two pyrotechnic displays, the 9pm Family Fireworks and the Midnight Fireworks, both of which are televised nationally with the latter also televised around the world.
Each year the event takes on a new theme and is regularly viewed by more than one million people at the harbor and one billion worldwide for the televised Midnight Fireworks. For the 2010–11 event, an audience of 1.5 million watched the display at the river bank and 1.1 billion are reported to have watched it globally.
Edinburgh, Scotland, is crowded for the Hogmanay (“last day of the year”) celebration.
Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year (Gregorian calendar) in the Scottish manner. However, it is normally only the start of a celebration that lasts through the night until the morning of New Year’s Day (1 January) or, in some cases, 2 January — a Scottish Bank Holiday.
Paris revelers greet each other with “Bonne Annee!” and send cards and gifts for weeks after a big night centered around Champs-Elysees.
31 December marks the last day of the year and the beginning of a very long night of joy and good humor. New Year’s Eve (“Saint-Sylvester’s Eve“) celebrations are generally held among friends and family impatient to say the famous phrase “Happy New Year!”
In France, New Year’s Day has not always been 1 January. In the 6th and 7th centuries, in many provinces, New Year was celebrated on 1 March. Under the rule of Charlemagne in the 9th century, the year started at Christmas.
An OBLOGDEE and Melanie Nathan account of the year 2013.
By Melanie Nathan, December 30, 2013.
As usual at the risk of being controversial, including, excluding, forgetting, remembering, here is my list of the year’s best and worst for 2013. Please feel free to weigh in! This was a year of reckoning for the religious right, a year of celebration for proponents of freedom and equality and an odious year for global LGBTI rights.
This was an historic year; momentously progressive and like none other for the LGBTI community of the United States of America, as marriage equality now tallies 18 States, with a great thanks to the momentum created through the fall of DOMA. It was a sad year for human rights on a global level. While South Africa finally saw justice in a horrendous case of so called “corrective” (“curative”) rape, and India saw the reinstatement of draconian…
“What about kids who are sexually molested early on and as a result have homosexual and cross-dressing feelings?”
By Cathy Kristofferson, December 29, 2013
Brian Camenker, founder of MassResistance the “other” SPLC-designated hate group of Massachusetts, recently jetted down to Jamaica to spread anti-gay lies & hate in what is already dubbed the “world’s most homophobic country.” As we have reported here on OBLOGDEE, homophobia has been raging in Jamaica for a while but has become more extreme following a lawsuit brought to repeal the country’s colonial era anti-sodomy (buggery) law.
Camenker claims to have been the main speaker at the Jamaican Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS) event to celebrate International Human Rights Day. OBLOGDEE reported on the JCHS anti-gay conference featuring American and British bigots, including Peter LeBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), held the previous weekend here.
Taking a page from his BFF Scott Lively the leader of “the”…
Will to Power’s medley of these two songs had more of a synthesized dance beat (as opposed to the rock ballad-like nature of the two original songs). It rose to #1 on the Hot 100 chart on December 3, 1988 (the last medley to do so on that chart) remaining there for one week. It also peaked at #2 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart. Additionally, in the “Freebird” section, the line “and the bird you cannot change” in the original version was changed to “and this bird will never change”.
Shadows grow so long before my eyes
And they’re moving across the page
Suddenly the day turns into night
Far away from the city
But don’t hesitate
Cause your love, your love wont wait ho-no-no
Ooh baby I love your way every day
Ooh wanna tell you I love your way every day
Ooh wanna be with you night and day
Hey yeah
I love your way
If I leave here tomorrow
Will you still remember me
For I must be traveling on now
There’s so many places I gotta see
But if I stayed here with you girl
Things just wouldn’t be the same
Cause I’m as free as a bird now
And this bird will never change,
And this bird will never change …
Shadows grow so long before my eyes
With the help of some fireflies
I wonder how they have the power to shine
I can see them under the pines
But don’t hesitate
Cause your love wont wait
Ooh baby I love your way
Ooh wanna tell you I love your way
Ooh baby I love your way
Every day now
Ooh wanna tell you I love your way
I love your way
Ooh baby I love your way
Give me you way, wanna tell you I love your way
Ooh baby I love your way
Ooh baby I love your way
Ooh wanna tell you I love your way
Ooh baby I love your way
Ooh wanna tell you I love your way
Ooh baby I love your way
“Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley (Free Baby)” is the title of a 1988 single by the American dance-pop band Will To Power. The song combines elements of two previously recorded rock songs: “Baby, I Love Your Way”, a #12 Billboard Hot 100 hit from 1976 by the British-born singer Peter Frampton; and American Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song “Free Bird”
Like any other nomination and award received, this humbles me. It’s rewarding to know, on a personal level, that what I write is read by others. My main goal has been to share the knowledge I may have and to compile information that appears in different web resources and educational venues.
I am honored by your nomination and gladly and very respectfully accept. Now to follow the award instructions.
The instructions for this award are simple:
1- Select the blog(s) you think deserve the Blog of The Year 2013 Award.
2- Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there are no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ the blog(s) with their award.
3- Let the blog(s) that you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the instructions with them – (please don’t alter the instructions or the badges!)
6- And as a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with this award – and proudly display the award on your blog – and start collecting stars!
Share your blog posts with an even wider audience.
The parameters that I have used today to determine my nominees are:
The amount of knowledge that I have received by following your blog
The varied topics that are selected and written about
The obvious amount of reading, research and preparation that goes into every post that I read on your blog
The authenticity that I “perceive” as I read your material
The interactions that we’ve had in the comments section
They say that copying is the best form of flattery …. I have copied some ideas from your blogs to use in mine
I don’t read newspapers, I’ve really never have. The ink makes my hands dirty …. I don’t have a need to read them at all now because I my source of news, updates, recipes, art and entertainment and more ….. by following your posts
I can truthfully say that I’ve become a better informed, educated and well-rounded individual because of what I’ve learned from following your blog.
I nominate the following blogs for “Blogger of the year”
Now have one from me, if you have one or two, three, four, whatever, already, Google for the image with the stars for the Awards you have.
This is a VERY prestigious Award! Yes!! That’s right!! There are stars to collect!
Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different!
When you begin you will receive the ’1 star’ award- and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star!
There are a total of 6 stars to collect.
Which means that you can check out your favorite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum of 6 stars! You can either ‘swop’ your badge for the next one each time you are given the award – or even proudly display all six badges if you are lucky enough to be presented with the award 6 times!
You can find all the badges and banners and information you need via this link: ‘Blog of The Year 2013′ Award Badges.
“Congratulations to all the nominees! Best of luck to every one!
You all deserve Blog of The Year 2013 award!
We ALL are ONE!!
Happy New Year Animated Greetings 2014
Published on Dec 28, 2013
New Year is the time at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar’s year count is incremented. In many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner.
“Sei vorsichtig mit dem, was Du weisst. Damit beginnen Deine Probleme” 🍀 “Be careful of what you know. That’s where your troubles begin”
🌷
Wade in The 3 Body Problem
As usual at the risk of being controversial, including, excluding, forgetting, remembering, here is my list of the year’s best and worst for 2013. Please feel free to weigh in! This was a year of reckoning for the religious right, a year of celebration for proponents of freedom and equality and an odious year for global LGBTI rights.
Brian Camenker, founder of MassResistance the “other” SPLC-designated hate group of Massachusetts, recently jetted down to Jamaica to spread anti-gay lies & hate in what is already dubbed the “world’s most homophobic country.” As we have reported 
Camenker claims to have been the main speaker at the Jamaican Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS) event to celebrate International Human Rights Day. OBLOGDEE reported on the JCHS anti-gay conference featuring American and British bigots, including Peter LeBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), held the previous weekend 
It Is What It Is 