With the New Year being just around the corner, you might already be in a festive mood. The list of facts below might cheer you up further. Some of these New Year facts are simply hilarious and even hard to believe sometimes.

  1. Certain people actually wear diapers on their heads during the New Year celebration at the Times Square in New York to cater for the lack of toilets and for any eventual emergency.
  1. A year in Ethiopia consists of 13 months and thus the country is currently in 2006 and the New Year celebration is on September 11th.
  1. Until we reached the year 2006, the Space Shuttle was never able to fly on New Year’s eve or on the day as its computers were not able to calculate the change of year.
  1. As a means of discouraging drunk driving, the AAA offer free car towing and a lift home to people who have consumed too much alcohol even if they are not an AAA member. This service is available in some American states only.
  1. The 9th Symphony by Beethoven was shared by the German POWS during World War I with their Japanese counterparts and now the music has integrated the national tradition and is even performed on every New Year.
  1. In 2010, a suicide bomber who was planning an attack on central Moscow was killed when she received a message from her mobile operator wishing her a happy new year. The message was received some hours before the intended attack and this triggered the suicide belt.