This is the third year in a row that Hans has featured panoramas depicting New Year’s celebrations. In the past, he has featured panos taken by Jook Leung of Times Square festivities, which have been viewed by more than 400,000 people!

For 2005, the site features EIGHT full screen New Year’s panos from around the globe:

	Times Square (with sound) by Jook Leung hear the countdown as the famous ball drops and revellers celebrate to Auld Lang Syne,
	Amsterdam by Jan van der Woning, fireworks as seen from the Blue Bridge (Blauwbrug),
	Zermatt (with sound) by Matthias Taugwalder, a huge crowd celebrating at an open air party at the famous resort in the Alps,
	Lisbon by Willy Kaemena, at the site of Expo '98,
	Taiwan by Walker Young - fireworks by the tallest building in the world,
	Philadelphia (with sound) by Will Brown New Year's day parade,
	Denver by John Fellers, fireworks at the 16th Street Mall, and
	Dubai by Samir Ahmed, guests celebrating at the marine terrace of Le Meridian Mina Seyahi.

New Year Trivia
The celebration of the New Year is the oldest of all holidays and was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago and celebrated on the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring in the northern hemisphere). In 46 BC Julius Caesar established the Julian Calendar and the new year was arbitrarily set as the first day of January. The early Catholic Church condemned the festivities as paganism, but by the Middle Ages celebrations were widespread. Western nations have celebrated the holiday for the past four centuries. The song, "Auld Lang Syne," at least partially written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in the 1700s, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the New Year.