DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A new report confirmed on Wednesday that President Donald Trump cut ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after he pressured a young employee at Mar-a-Lago for sex in 2003. Trump said in July that he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in the early 2000s because he “stole” spa staffers, while other reports suggested that Epstein was removed for making advances toward another member’s teenage daughter. A report by The Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump permanently removed Epstein from the premises after an 18-year-old beautician told her managers that Epstein had made sexual advances toward her. The beautician told the managers that Epstein had made advances during a personal house call, which prompted one of them to fax Trump about the allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, according to The WSJ. Trump said it was a good letter and said that Epstein should be removed. Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees—usually young women—to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services, according to former… pic.twitter.com/6Aj3TW2LYf— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 31, 2025 Former employees also said that the allegations were also reported to the human resources teams, but not to the police, according to The WSJ. The Palm Beach police began investigating Epstein two years later, when a parent reported that Epstein molested a 14-year-old from a local high school. Authorities arrested Epstein in 2006 and charged him with soliciting prostitution. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The WSJ that Trump kicked Epstein out for being a “creep.” “No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains: President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar a Lago for being a creep,” Leavitt said. Employees sent on house calls, including the 18-year-old beautician, were typically licensed by state board of cosmetology or massage therapy, according to The WSJ. Another former Mar-a-Lago employee, Virginia Giuffre, left to go work for Epstein when she was 16 years old. She alleged that Epstein’s former business partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, recruited her to perform sex acts. Giuffre died by suicide in April. Four other Mar-a-Lago employees were listed in Epstein’s address book, which was obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2009, according to The WSJ. The Department of Justice (DOJ) was in the process of releasing documents related to Epstein to comply with The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed into law in November. The agency said some of the files contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump that were submitted before the 2020 presidential election. In a 2020 email, a federal prosecutor claimed Trump “traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported,” citing at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996. The documents showed that Mar-a-Lago was subpoenaed in 2021 as part of the case against Maxwell. Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in August that Trump had always been a “gentleman in all respects” and never committed any illegal wrongdoing. Several of Epstein’s victims told NBC News in September that they never witnessed or heard of Trump doing anything wrong. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The post New Report Confirms Trump Kicked Epstein Out of Mar-A-Lago After He Pressured Young Employee for Sex appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In a podcast episode for the upcoming one-year anniversary of the California wildfires, Palisades resident Elaine Culotti lays out the state’s inept response and how the outrage over it is bipartisan. Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Contributor Elaine Culotti. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of her videos. Hi, my name’s Elaine Culotti, also known as the “Lipstick Farmer.” I am presenting my first podcast for The Daily Signal. The subject of the podcast today is the Pacific Palisades’ celebration of the one year anniversary of the fires. Now, I’m not calling them a celebration, but some people are. We are about to be descended upon here in the Pacific Palisades and in California on Jan. 7 by media from all across America. I’ve had multiple phone calls from different media outlets asking if I had a place where they could post up and where they could spread the news about what’s happened and what has not happened in the Pacific Palisades. I’m here to tell you, not enough has happened. I’d like to just kind of give everyone a rundown so you know what to expect, and then I’d like to give you my take on what I think this means for California going forward. So as it sits, the Pacific Palisades has lost about 7,000 structures, of which about 180-ish permits have been issued. There’ll probably be a mad push out to get some more so that those numbers look better, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to work. We also have Altadena, which has a little bit more permits, but it’s also a bigger area. And in addition to that, the houses are smaller and they are easier to permit than the more complex houses on the hillsides by the ocean. Malibu, unfortunately, is so far behind, and this is a product of being on the water and not having any sewage that has been there, historically. Instead it’s been septic and septic tanks, they rot, and then once they’re gone, it’s difficult to put them back because the rules and the laws have changed, and you have to have sewage and there is none in Malibu. So, with that, it looks like PCH is not going to be rebuilt anytime in the future. What does this mean? Well, sadly, to me, it means that it’s going to take a minute for my town and our community to come back as a community, and this should not be the case. And I know that, and I think that other people are starting to realize it too. The only thing I can say about all of this is that there is somewhere in there a blessing. Number one, we are finally, for the first time, I think in California, truly aware of the mismanagement of the resources in the state. No one is going to argue with you that this has been handled well, and anyone that digs into it on any level can see that there is mass dilapidation, mass broken infrastructure from decades prior to the fires. Anybody that looks into it with even a little bit of a lens can see that we did no fire mitigation, no brush clearance. We didn’t clean our forests. We did not repair our reservoirs, and we did not take care of our fire department. So a plethora of reasons caused the fires, but the primary, the real primary—as much as people want to blame it on a fire on a hillside—was that Sacramento has strip mined the state of California and left nothing for us to take care of our towns. And that is not lost on me. I am traveling the state, and I’m talking to a lot of town and city leaders, and what I’m finding is that this is not synonymous only with the fire zones. What I’m finding, actually, is everywhere from Northern California as far as Humboldt County, all the way down to Chula Vista and the border, mayors and towns are struggling to have Sacramento participate in any way that is meaningful in their needs, lifestyle and promises that they have made when they’ve stepped into office. When, and if you do come to the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, or if you are watching the news or you are seeing what’s happening, remember this podcast and remember that these are real people that lost everything and have absolutely no one to turn to for help. Nothing has happened. Our mayor, while I know a lot of people want to blame her, has four million people that she needs to take care of in Los Angeles. And our governor is absolutely nowhere to be seen. I have not seen him in the Pacific Palisades since a few days after the fires. He may have come back by dark of night, but he certainly hasn’t come back to help or talk to anybody. We have been absolutely left to fend for ourselves, and what I would like to say on that is, well, if that is the case, then we should do that. We should fend for ourselves. And what does that mean? Should we take back our Pacific Palisades from Los Angeles and from the state? Should we go around to all of the cities and see if we can’t talk to each member of these cities and create a coalition to get rid of Sacramento’s quagmire and money stealing game that they do every single day? What should we do about it? Do we want to be in a society where the government that we hire and employ with our taxpayer dollars is working against us? Is that what we planned on when we elected these officials? And now, as you can see, the other issue is that there are a lot of people that are looking for the money. And I hope by Jan. 7 that they’re going to figure out what happened to the $100 million that was raised at a musical event by people that lost everything—four people that lost everything. That money has also not been recovered. They haven’t recovered the $24 billion in homeless money, and we don’t have an accounting for it. They haven’t recovered what happened to the Operation Homekey money. I know they arrested a couple of people in Brentwood, but none of us have heard. Where’s the money? Where did the money go? And I’m sure now, after looking into the COVID funds that have been missing in other states, they are going to turn to California and find that we have the same problem. The best I can say about the fires in the Palisades is that we now have this golden opportunity. We are on the precipice. We have a moment in time where we can quote, unquote, flip our state. And I don’t mean make it a red state. I mean get rid of what is ruining our state. Get rid of it. Stop voting for people that are self-serving and trying to get reelected. I think we have to all come together, and this is going to include people on the left and people on the right. One of the things I’ve discovered about being a Palisadian is that we’re not a divided group. I’ve talked to so many people in the Pacific Palisades, some deep blue Democrats. I’m not saying that they’re not. There are lots of deep blue Democrats. I used to be one, but that’s not what it’s about. What I mean, we’re not divided, we all want the same things. We want fiscal responsibility in Sacramento. I can tell you that. There’s no question about it, and we want safety in our streets. We don’t want to be fighting, and crime, and homelessness, and stores that are closing, and people that are driving through our town stealing that don’t belong there, and not being able to do anything about it. We don’t want that. And the other thing we want more than anything is economic development. We want true economic development, but economic development in our towns with the people that live in our towns. We don’t want economic development from the outside, groups that are coming in and taking advantage, and that’s what we’re getting. Because Sacramento is so oppressive with its rules and its new legislation and its crazy bills that it passes. It doesn’t consider anybody in a place like the Palisades. It doesn’t consider anybody in Malibu, or Altadena, but it also doesn’t consider even downtown. At the end of the day, they pass these bills because they owe favors to people, I guess, and they’re looking to get those favors repaid for. How do you go about that? Well, you create an oppressive bill and you take the power away from the people in the town that live there, and that’s what they’re doing. They’re doing it with SB 79. They did it with Proposition 50, they did it with the transit districts. I could go on and on. Heck, they even did it with Prop 36, which was passed overwhelmingly, the crime bill. They haven’t funded it. I look forward to talking to you on this podcast as we move forward, and I look forward to seeing you on Jan. 7, if you make it to the Pacific Palisades. If you don’t, and you watch a lot of podcasts about the Pacific Palisades, just remember one really good thing: everything burned down and you can see everything that they didn’t do. The emperor truly has no clothes. The post How California’s Incompetence After Wildfires Woke a Sleeping Giant appeared first on The Daily Signal.

More Suspicious Daycare Activity, This Time in Washington

2025 marked a year of arguably unparalleled success for the NewsBusters team seeing as how, along with chronicling the best and worst in daily and long-term liberal media bias, we helped see to a successful conclusion a decades-long fight to defund National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS. In addition to President Trump’s successful media lawsuits and changes inside CBS News, the NewsBusters team was proud to take credit for the suspension of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel plus the May 2026 cancellation of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. As you’ll see below in our top-ten list of the most read stories, you’ll see two of those topics featured along with the major media stories of 2025 such as the Charlie Kirk assassination, the government shutdown, and the expanding influence of Alex Soros. It’s stated every year, but we cannot begin to thank each and every one of you enough for your support of NewsBusters and the Media Research Center. Along with downloading the NewsBusters app (which is available in both the Apple and Google Play stores), please consider donating to help keep our newsroom humming to keep the liberal media honest. To see past year-end top-ten lists, follow the links for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. 1. November 5 – STUDY: TV News Spends Shutdown Playing Defense for Democrats Senior research analyst Bill D’Agostino snagged the top spot this year for his blockbuster study on broadcast network evening news coverage of this fall’s record-breaking government shutdown. D’Agostino found that “87 percent of the coverage” in the month of October “favored Democrats” and “83 evaluative statements…critical of Republicans, but just twelve criticizing Democrats.” Arguably, the most stunning number was the fact that not one segment pointed out many Senate Democrats had “voted back in March to end the same Obamacare subsidies” they’ve demanded be extended. 2. September 10 – ABC Proclaims Charlie Kirk Had It Coming, Students Didn’t Want Him on Campus Associate editor Nick Fondacaro clocked in at the second spot for chronicling the worst liberal bias from the ABC News Special Report on what we would sadly learn was Charlie Kirk’s murder at Utah Valley University. ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips leaned into describing Kirk as having “outspoken views on politics, culture, religion…sparking sometimes pretty heated debates” about other issues such as “DEI, Jews, women, LGBTQ community, [and] people of color” and thus “controversial.” Senior investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky scoffed that Kirk’s very appearances was foreboding because it “had divided the campus… where there were people on both sides debating whether he should even be allowed to bring his message” there. ABC News essentially proclaims that Charlie Kirk had it coming: AARON KATERSKY: His presence there at the university had divided the campus, according to an article in the school paper, where there were people on both sides debating whether he should even be allowed to bring his… pic.twitter.com/GiyxfqOHd5 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 10, 2025   3. January 7 -- Daily Mail: Sunny Hostin’s Surgeon Husband Hit With Claims of Insurance Fraud (But Cleared Months Later) Early in the year, we spotlighted reports that View co-host Sunny Hostin’s doctor husband was caught up in a massive insurance fraud suit that was “one of the largest RICO cases ever filed in New York...accused of getting kickbacks by performing surgery and fraudulently billing a company that insures taxi companies and Uber and Lyft drivers.” By July 10, however, he was dropped from the suit with the transit company at the center of the kerfuffle saying it “deeply regrets any public speculation against Dr. Emmanuel Hostin, his wife, Sunny Hostin, or his children.” 4. February 18 – CONNECTING THE DOTS: Mapping Alex Soros’s Growing Dominance in Washington MRC Business’s Joseph Vazquez teamed up with author and Bongino Report content manager Matt Palumbo for an exhaustive and unmatched detailing of far-left donor Alex Soros’s web of influence as he assumes the public mantle of Soros family operations from his father, George. From his meetings with the Biden regime to the Kenyan president and expanding the reach of his pet project Global Witness, the pair showed why the younger Soros is here to stay.   5. August 27 – CNN’s Jake Tapper Wants You to Use Correct Pronouns of School Shooter Fondacaro made his second of three appearances on the list thanks to CNN host Jake Tapper stepping on a massive rake in covering the deadly Minneapolis Catholic school shooting by breaking his personal rule of not saying the name of a mass shooter…in order to make clear the biological male was supposedly a woman. 6. February 5 – CONFIRMED: CBS LIED to Voters About No ‘Deceitful’ Editing for Kamala Back in early February amid the Donald Trump-Paramount lawsuit, Fondacaro meticulously went through the released footage – courtesy of the Federal Communications Commission – of Democrat Kamala Harris’s unedited interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.     A NewsBusters analysis found that CBS had, in fact, chopped up its pre-2024 election interview to make the meandering, stammering Harris seem cogent. The footage’s release further pressured CBS’s parent company Paramount into a multi-million-dollar settlement. 7. January 27 – BETRAYAL: Soros-Controlled Station Unmasks Vehicles of ‘Undercover’ ICE Agents in San Jose Vazquez torched a Bay Area news radio station in late January for its rancorous reporting out the direct location and description of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials on the January 26 KCBS Radio Weekend News. KCBS – not to be confused with CBS’s Los Angeles-area TV station – belongs to the radio conglomerate Audacy, controlled by a Soros-controlled investment firm. Just a few weeks ago, Vazquez updated our viewers on the fact that the anchor at the center of the hoopla had been demoted.   8. March 8 – WHOA: NPR Host Interviews Greg Gutfeld, Fights With Him Over 'Racist' Asian Joke As part of his beat covering the now-defunded National Public Radio (NPR), executive editor Tim Graham brought us this humdinger from springtime as Fox News Channel host Greg Gutfeld went toe-to-toe with Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon. Simon whined to Gutfeld his “controversial” show is built on “insult conservatism,” and “punch[es] left,” but “not punching up at powerful people.” Gutfeld was not having any of this, blasting Simon for being part of “the most powerful people” who’ve “controlled the megaphone for years” and are “95 percent left-wing.” Thus, he argued, he wasn’t interested in going along to get along with the old guard.   9. June 22 – CBS News Touts a 'Groundswell' Against DeSantis That's Less Than TEN CBS Evening News Plus both launched, flopped, and was cancelled in less than a year. Along with anchor John Dickerson’s snarky, left-wing commentaries dubbed “Report’s Notebook,” there were plenty of cartoonishly liberal reports. Florida-based correspondent Manuel Bojorquez had one our Tim Graham took part that was billed as showcasing a “groundswell” of opposition to the work by President Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) to rid the Sunshine State of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) gobbledygook.     As Graham’s headline indicated, it was wildly misleading as a local news story out of Florida A&M reported the protest was “at least 10” people. 10. January 20 – We Watched ABC So You Didn’t Have to. Here’s Their Worst Inaugural Meltdown To cap off our top-ten list, we throwback to my blog from Inauguration Day summarizing the torrent of Trump hatred on ABC that kvetched his speech was a “hot mess of division” “filled with hammers,” and “hard to watch” because it was such a “harsh repudiation” of Joe Biden given before an audience that “did not really reflect” America’s “diversity.” This mouthful of negative hot takes laid the groundwork for what we would see on a near-constant basis from ABC, which was undoubtedly the most-liberal broadcast network and up there with MS NOW and PBS in all of TV news.  

When everyday people find themselves presumably overmatched and outgunned by armed crooks — and end up turning the tables on the thugs breaking the law — it's nothing short of inspiring.In 2025, Blaze News ran across its fair share of such stories. Such as when a concealed-carrying garbage truck driver found himself facing down a pair of would-be armed robbers — and won the battle ... or when five armed males forced their way into a California home, only to find themselves on the losing end of things when the homeowner grabbed his own gun ... and best tale of all, when a gun-wielding thug demanded a Rolex from a man on a West Hollywood street. The crook's problem? His target allegedly was a retired wrestler. Oops!So check out our satisfying top-five instances when everyday people turned the tables on armed thugs:Home invasion victim fights armed burglar, then turns the tables on him — with deadly resultsA Houston home invasion victim fought an armed burglar on the night of April 9, police said — and the victim turned the tables on the crook, taking his gun away and then shooting him dead with it.Police told KPRC-TV that three burglars targeted an apartment on Westridge Street near the NRG Stadium in the southeast part of the city a little after 9 p.m. One of the masked males knocked on the door while the two others tried breaking in through a window, the station said, citing a police news release. The residents called 911 by that time, KPRC reported.Police said one of the burglars pointed a gun at the two tenants, and a fight ensued after one of the tenants knocked the gun out of the burglar's hands, the station reported.During the fight, police told KPRC the burglar "pulled out a second gun from his waistband." But the 20-year-old apartment resident who was fighting the burglar wrestled the gun away from the suspect and shot him, the station said.The two other burglars ran off by the time police arrived, KPRC said, adding that the third burglar, who was shot during the fight, died from his injuries. Police have identified the deceased burglar only as an 18-year-old male, the station said.No charges have been filed against the homeowner, KPRC said, but police confirmed that the Harris County District Attorney's Office was contacted and that a grand jury would review the case.Concealed-carrying garbage truck driver turns the tables on wannabe armed robbers — 1 of whom pays ultimate priceA concealed-carrying garbage truck driver turned the tables in late January on a pair of would-be armed robbers in Chicago, fatally shooting one of them and wounding the other, police said.Chicago police told WLS-TV the shoot-out occurred around 5:15 a.m. Jan. 31, just steps away from a high school. The station, citing police, said a 28-year-old man working as a garbage truck driver was outside in the 900 block of South Homan Avenue when two males approached him, showed a gun, and announced a robbery.But it seems the pair chose unwisely.Police told WLS the suspects and the victim — who has a valid Firearm Owner's Identification card and concealed carry license — engaged in a shoot-out.One of the suspects, 42, was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, the station reported. The other suspect, 20, was shot in the neck and was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital in critical condition, WLS noted.The victim was taken to St. Anthony Hospital in good condition for an evaluation, the station said.Police recovered two weapons from the scene, the station said, adding that Area Four detectives are investigating.Gun-wielding thug demands Rolex from man. But victim allegedly is a retired wrestler — and the tables are about to turn.The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department told Blaze News that deputies responded just before 1 p.m. Oct. 22 to the 900 block of North Sweetzer Avenue in West Hollywood regarding an armed robbery call. According to the victim, a dark-colored sedan was seen traveling down the street at a high rate of speed before stopping near his location, authorities said.As you might expect, the driver didn't need directions.The sheriff's department told Blaze News that an adult black male wearing a mask exited the vehicle holding a semiautomatic handgun and demanded the victim's Rolex watch. But the victim refused to comply, and a physical struggle ensued, authorities said.Patrick McCloskey told KTLA-TV he was working from home when he heard a woman screaming from the sidewalk: "The chaos was so intense, I didn't know who jumped who. I ran to the door to see what was happening. At that point, I hear her yell, 'Get the gun, get the gun!'"Apparently getting hold of the gun wasn't too difficult for the victim, as McCloskey explained to the station that the gunman "didn't know that the guy was a retired wrestler. So he was able to get the gun off the guy and wrestle him down."Video of the incident's aftermath shows the victim — who didn't want to be identified — telling a deputy that he grabbed the gunman's wrist and put him on the ground before taking the gun away, KTLA reported. The victim's girlfriend then threw the gun over a nearby fence, and he held the suspect down until police arrived, the station said.The sheriff's department told Blaze News that a second adult male suspect exited the vehicle during the struggle but fled the scene in the dark-colored sedan prior to the arrival of deputies. Responding deputies recovered the gun and took the suspect into custody without further incident, officials said."I was told the gun was loaded," McCloskey noted to KTLA. "The guy who is sort of the hero in all of this, who was able to pin the guy down, told me he saw a bullet in the chamber."McCloskey added to the station that the retired wrestler showed no mercy in his struggle with the gunman: "At one point the guy's arm got dislocated, and he just held him down."5 armed thugs force their way into residence — but gun-toting homeowner isn't about to back downWhen five armed males forced their way into a residence in Los Banos, California, in late March, the homeowner also got himself a gun — and won the confrontation, shooting two of the intruders.Police Chief Ray Reyna told KFSN-TV that "the homeowner approached the intruders with a gun he legally owns," after which the chief said a shoot-out ensued with the homeowner shooting two of the suspects.A dispatcher on police scanner audio indicated that one suspect was wounded in the leg and another was wounded in the stomach, KFSN reported. The two suspects were in custody at a Modesto area hospital where they were expected to survive, the station said. Los Banos is about an hour south of Modesto.KFSN said police were searching for the other three suspects who escaped the home through a bedroom window and then took off in a car.The chief told the station that at least four people were inside the home at the time of the incident, and they weren't hurt.Reyna added to KFSN that he has reason to believe the intruders are not from the area, and he said police are looking into a possible motive.Thug picks wrong victim to allegedly point weapon at and chase — and the tables painfully turn on himDeputies from the Oneida County Sheriff's Office in upstate New York responded to a reported physical altercation involving a weapon in Vernon on the evening of Dec. 1, officials said. Vernon is about 40 minutes east of Syracuse.It was reported that an individual was acting erratically and pointed what was believed to be a handgun at two victims, officials said. The two victims tried to retreat into a nearby residence, but the suspect advanced toward them with the weapon, officials said.A fight then broke out between the suspect and one of the victims, officials said, and the victim managed to get the weapon away from the suspect. Arriving deputies took the suspect into custody without issue, officials said.The suspect was identified as Glenn A. Wallis, 40, of Vernon, officials said, adding that Wallis was taken to the Kurt B. Wyman Law Enforcement Building.Wallis was charged with two counts of menacing in the second degree — a class A misdemeanor — along with one count of harassment in the second degree, which officials defined as a "violation."However, officials said a member of the Criminal Investigation Unit also charged Wallis with one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree, which is a class D felony. According to WUTR-TV, the weapon that Wallis was brandishing was a pistol-style pellet gun. Wallis was then taken to and held at the Oneida County Correctional Facility.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Every December 31st, billions of people prepare for one of humanity’s oldest celebrations: the transition from one year to the next. From gathering in Times Square to singing “Auld Lang Syne” at a bar to simply kissing at midnight, modern New Year’s Eve rituals feel timeless — and, in a way, they are. The history of this global celebration stretches back millennia, evolving from ancient festivals to the rowdy parties of today. See our gallery of colorized vintage New Year’s Eve photos below to experience celebrations from the past as they truly were. Then, read on to learn more about the history of New Year’s Eve festivities. Click here to view slideshow The Beginnings Of New Year's Celebrations The concept of marking a new year predates modern civilization. Around 4,000 years ago, the Babylonians in ancient Mesopotamia celebrated Akitu, a multi-day festival held around the spring equinox in late March. Though it may seem odd now, this timing made sense from the perspective of agriculture — spring marked the start of a new planting season. Akitu also held special significance as a sacred religious festival, during which the Babylonians reaffirmed their loyalty to the king and their beliefs that their gods determined humanity's fate for the coming year. The ancient Egyptians, meanwhile, celebrated their new year with the annual flooding of the Nile, which brought life by ensuring that lands would be fertile. The Persians aligned their new year with the vernal equinox, while the early Greeks celebrated it during the winter solstice. While there were plenty of differences between these ancient celebrations, they all shared a common thread: humanity's desire to mark the passage of time and celebrate a sense of renewal or rebirth. In the same way, the Romans once observed the vernal equinox as their start of the new year. By the time of Julius Caesar, however, the New Year's celebration had been moved to January 1st. This move was meant to honor the god Janus, who represented new beginnings and change. A two-faced deity, Janus was believed to have one face looking back at the past and another face gazing forward to the future. In short, Janus perfectly embodied the spirit of New Year's reflection. Romans celebrated with offerings to Janus, exchanged gifts of figs and honey with others in the hopes of inspiring sweetness in the year ahead, and decorated their homes with laurel branches, symbolizing victory. Despite Rome's influence, however, January 1st didn't immediately become the standard day to celebrate the new year everywhere. According to Medievalists, during the Middle Ages, for instance, certain places in Europe celebrated the new year on different dates. Some, for example, marked it on December 25th, the same day Christmas is now celebrated, while others chose March 25th, to coincide with the Feast of the Annunciation. It may have been disorganized and chaotic, but this was also a time when the roots of paganism still endured, even as Christian influence grew. In fact, the Catholic Church initially viewed New Year's festivities with some suspicion because of how closely related the celebrations were to pagan indulgences. Throughout medieval Europe, church authorities often discouraged or banned many types of New Year's revelry, sometimes pushing Christians toward more solemn religious observances instead. This mattered little to the common people, who continued marking the occasion with feasts, gift-giving, and merrymaking. The Modern Calendar Reaffirms New Year's Day In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, which reformed Julius Caesar's Julian calendar and firmly reestablished January 1st as New Year's Day. Though some countries adopted the change quickly, others initially resisted and only confirmed the change for their people later on. Shockingly, England and its American colonies didn't switch until 1752 — meaning that different parts of the Western world were still celebrating the new year on different days at that point. And according to Historic UK, the fight to make this change was a brutal one, as rioters lamented the loss of 11 days in September and grew angry over concerns that their lives would shortened by 11 days. Public DomainAn Election Entertainment by William Hogarth, circa 1755. This artwork depicts the time of the English calendar riots that spawned the call, "Give us our 11 days!" Fortunately, that was not the case, and the country — and the American colonies — eventually got in line with most of the West in adopting the Gregorian calendar. However, some countries held out even longer, with Turkey only adopting the change in 1927. Once that calendar system became the global standard for most of the world, New Year's celebrations began to evolve. By the 19th century, they were once again marked by social gatherings, dancing, and enjoying food and drinks. The wealthy revelers often hosted elaborate parties, while working-class communities gathered in taverns and public squares to ring in the new year together, assuming they didn't have to work that day. But America's most famous New Year's celebration — the Times Square Ball Drop — is much more recent than other festive traditions. The Origins Of The Times Square Ball Drop In 1904, The New York Times moved its headquarters to Longacre Square, which the city promptly renamed Times Square in the newspaper's honor. To celebrate, the paper's owner and publisher Adolph Ochs hosted a wild New Year's Eve party in Times Square, featuring a massive fireworks display. The event was so successful that Times Square immediately became New York City's ultimate New Year's destination. However, by 1907, fireworks had been banned in the area due to safety concerns. Needing an alternative spectacle, Ochs drew inspiration from a maritime tradition known as a "time-ball" — which involved a sphere dropping at a specific time at observatories to help crews of passing ships keep track of the time. The first New Year's Eve ball, constructed of wood, iron, and 100 lightbulbs, descended on New Year's Eve 1907. Weighing 700 pounds and measuring five feet in diameter, the ball captivated the enormous crowd gathered below it in Times Square. Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy Stock PhotoA crowd gathered in Times Square to celebrate New Year's Eve in the 1930s. Over the decades, the ball has undergone multiple transformations and upgrades, and the ball drop has become practically synonymous with American New Year's celebrations, broadcast to millions of viewers worldwide each year. Other cities have embraced the tradition with their own quirky variations — Dillsburg, Pennsylvania drops a giant pickle, for instance, while Tallapoosa, Georgia lowers a stuffed opossum. Modern New Year's Eve has become a truly global phenomenon, with spectacular celebrations unfolding from Sydney to London to Rio de Janeiro. Each country adds its own unique flavors — some Spanish revelers eat 12 grapes at midnight for good luck; some Danes smash plates against friends' doors to wish others a lucky year ahead; and some Filipinos believe that polka dots bring prosperity in the new year. Despite these diverse traditions, the fundamental spirit remains unchanged from ancient Babylon to today's Times Square: humans marking the passage of time, reflecting on what's behind us, and hoping for good things ahead. After viewing this gallery of colorized vintage New Year's Eve photos, see our galleries of colorized photographs from Victorian London and World War II. The post 44 Historic New Year’s Eve Photos In Color, From The Times Square Ball Drop To Surfing Celebrations appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Pay-to-Play Peter Gets Pickpocketed: London Thieves Snatch Schorsch's Gucci Murse in Ultimate Karma Heist

THAT Oughta Do It! Mayor Brandon Johnson Gets Roasted Over Video About Staying Safe in Chicago on NYE

Eric Swalwell's Backward Priorities: Arrest ICE Agents, Keep Illegal Aliens in California's Farm Fields

GOP Secures Major Ballot-Security Victory in Michigan to Close Out 2025