Good Question: Why Do We Drop A Ball On New Year's?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - More than a billion people all over the world are expected to watch the yearly ball drop in New York's Times Square on television.
And it's been happening in New York City for more than 100 years.
The first Times Square ball drop happened in 1907, when New York Times owner Adolph Ochs asked for something bigger than fireworks for New Year's Eve.
His electrician suggested a "Time Ball."
The first one was built from iron and wood, weighed 700 pounds and was lit with 100 bulbs.
Throughout the Dick Clark decades the ball changed in size and design.
Today, it weighs more than 11,000 pounds and incorporates more than 32,000 LED lights.
Eric Saunders is a producer for Carnival New Year's Eve 2015, a Brazilian-themed party that will take place at Muse Event Center in Minneapolis. It's a production he's been a part of for 12 years.
They won't have a ball drop, but Saunders still knows what it means.
"From what I understand, it's to signal the passage of time," said Eric.
That's true--in a couple of different ways.
The very first time ball was used at England's Royal Observatory in Greenwich in 1833.
It would drop at 1 p.m. every afternoon, alerting captains of nearby ships to set their navigational tools.
Today, a brighter ball alerts millions of people to the beginning of the new year. Almost as sure as New Year's resolutions will be broken, the time ball will drop.
Since the first ball was dropped on New Year's Eve 1907, there have only been two years it did not drop.
Those were 1942 and 1943, in observance of wartime blackouts.
