December 31st facts

While investigating facts about December 31st, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Koreans born on the 31st of December are considered two years old the next day

The copyright for the song "Happy Birthday to You" expires in the EU on December 31st, 2016

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 25 of the best facts about December 31st I managed to collect.

1. In Korea babies are considered 1 year old from birth and everyone ages on New Years Day. This means that in Korea a baby born on December 31st is already two years old by January 1st.

2. If the history of Earth were compressed to a single year, modern human would appear on December 31st at about 11.48pm.

3. Longplayer, a one thousand year long musical composition that is been playing since 31st of December 1999 and will continue till 2999.

4. the 20th Century ended on December 31st 2000, not December 31st 1999.

5. If the earth's history was compressed into one calender year humans would not show up until about 11:45pm on December 31st.

6. December 30, 2011 did not exist in Somoa. Samoa crossed over the International Date Line to better match the time zones of New Zealand, Australia and China, to improve business. Somoa went from Thursday December 29th directly to Saturday December 31st, skipping Friday December 30th completely.

7. The Longplayer, a computer composed music piece that started on January 1st, 2000 and is designed to play until December 31st of 2999 where it will restart.

8. A popular New Year’s Eve tradition in Germany is to watch a relatively obscure 18 minute British short called Dinner For One (1963) with 17 million people tuning in on 31st December 2016.

9. In 2011, Samoa and Tokelau skipped December 30th, going straight from the 29th to the 31st, when they opted to switch sides of the international date line to facilitate trade relations and better align with Australia and New Zealand.

10. Ethiopia uses a different new year, and that their new year is on September 11th, instead of December 31st. ALso, it has a 13th month of 5 or 6 extra timekeeping days.

What is true about december 31st?

You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.

Arthur Guinness on 31st December 1759 managed to obtain a lease for 9,000 years at 45 pounds per year for the St. James's Gate Brewery

A South Korean born on December 31st turns “2” the next day. - source

If the entire history of the universe was compressed into one year, humans would only start to exist at 11:59 pm on December 31st

People in Bhutan turn 1 year old on January 1st, irrespective of their birth dates, due to administrative purposes. Also Bhutanese believe they are 1 year old by default when they are born. So a child born on 31st of december will automatically turn 2 year old the very next day. - source

December 31st is most likely to fall on a Monday, Thursday, or Saturday.

The German name for New Year's Eve (Silvester) got its name because December 31st is the feast day of St. Pope Sylvester I. As such, NYE came to be associated with his name. Many other European countries use a variant of this name for NYE, as well.

Warren Buffett has a long bet worth 500,000$ with Protege Partners, LLC that will be finalized in a little over a year (January 1, 2008 -December 31st, 2017)

The Cosmic Calendar, where an astronomer chronologically arranged the 13.8 billion years of the Universe’s age into a single year. In this calendar, the Big Bang took place on January 1st at 12:00 am, while the present moment is 12:59 pm on December 31st

United Airlines Flight UA890 took off from Shanghai, China on January 1st, 2017 and landed in San Francisco on December 31st, 2016 at 6:34 PM

A "Leap Second" will be added on December 31st at 23:59 (11:59 PM) to accommodate for Earth's varying rotation. This means 2016 will last one second longer than a standard Leap Year.