January 1 in History

Peter the Great dragged Russia into the modern calendar by decree. The country abandoned the Byzantine Anno Mundi system, which counted years from the supposed creation of the world, and adopted the Anno Domini era used across Western Europe. Overnight the year jumped from 7208 to 1700. Peter didn't stop there. He moved New Year's from September 1 to January 1, ordered celebrations with fireworks and pine decorations, and fined nobles who showed up at court in traditional Russian dress instead of Western clothing. The man was remaking an entire empire one law at a time, from its calendar to its wardrobe. But Russia's calendar still lagged eleven days behind Western Europe — the gap between the Julian and Gregorian systems that Peter didn't bother closing. The Bolsheviks finally fixed that in 1918. Two hundred eighteen years to finish what Peter started.

Trumpet fanfares opened it. Trumpet fanfares closed it. Bach composed BWV 41 for New Year's Day 1725 and built the entire piece as a symmetrical frame — a structural choice that musicologists have been picking apart for three centuries. "Jesu, nun sei gepreiset" premiered at Leipzig's Thomaskirche, where Bach served as cantor, producing cantatas at a pace that borders on inhuman: roughly one new work every single week during the liturgical season. This particular piece threads a 16th-century hymn by Johannes Herman through six movements of escalating complexity and demands trumpet writing that's brutally difficult even by modern professional conservatory standards. But Bach's performers weren't professionals. Church musicians, mostly amateurs, sight-reading parts that would challenge trained orchestral players today. He expected excellence from them and somehow kept getting it. The manuscript survived only because Bach's widow Anna Magdalena sold his papers after his death to keep the family from starving.

The Roman legions in Germania Superior refuse to swear loyalty to Galba. They rebel and proclaim Vitellius as emperor. That was 69.

Saint Telemachus tries to stop a gladiatorial fight in a Roman amphitheatre, and is stoned to death by the crowd. This act impresses the Christian Emperor Honorius, who issues a historic ban on gladiatorial fights. That was 404.

An infuriated Roman mob tears Telemachus, a Christian monk, to pieces for trying to stop a gladiators' fight in the public arena held in Rome. That was 404.

Emperor Taizong of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty captures Daliang, ending the dynasty and empire of the Later Jin. That was 947.

Michael VIII Palaiologos was proclaimed co-emperor alongside his ward, the child emperor John IV Laskaris. Co-emperor in name. Sole ruler in practice. Within two years Michael blinded the boy — who was eleven — and seized full power. Four years after that he retook Constantinople from the Latin Empire, restoring Byzantine rule for the first time since Crusaders sacked the city in 1204. A regent who mutilated his ward and rebuilt an empire. Byzantine politics didn't allow for half-measures.

Twenty-year-old Francis, Duke of Brittany, succeeds to the French throne following the death of his father-in-law, Louis XII. That was 1515.

1726. J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Herr Gott, dich loben wir, BWV 16, his church cantata for New Year's Day to a libretto by Georg Christian Lehms.

General George Washington hoists the first United States flag, the Continental Union Flag, at Prospect Hill. That was 1776.

Fifteen hundred Pennsylvania soldiers marched out of their winter camp at Morristown. Not desertion. Mutiny. They hadn't been paid in over a year, they were freezing, and the army was reinterpreting their enlistment terms to keep them fighting longer than they'd agreed to. General Anthony Wayne tried to stop them. They pointed bayonets at him and kept walking. The mutineers headed toward Philadelphia to confront Congress directly. British agents tried to recruit them along the way. The Pennsylvanians turned the spies over immediately. They were furious at their own government. Not traitors.

The Acts of Union merged Great Britain and Ireland into a single state on New Year's Day 1801. Ireland's parliament voted itself out of existence — not unanimously, and not without sweeteners. Peerages and cash changed hands to secure the necessary votes, barely two years after the failed 1798 rebellion. Ireland sent 100 MPs to Westminster. Catholics, who made up the vast majority of the island's population, still couldn't hold office until 1829. The union lasted 121 years before Irish independence carved most of the island away.