A countdown seems like an annual tradition for New Years, but clock watching wasn't always a thing people did. The crowd didn't join in on the New Years Eve countdown until 1979. Here's how it started.
Stephanie Keith/Getty ImagesFireworks explode in Times Square on New Year's Eve on January 1, 2018 in New York City.These days, a New Year's Eve celebration doesn't feel complete without one thing: a countdown.
"But by the 20th century, it becomes a clock holiday. The calendar is still there, we're still waiting for January 1st, but the clock and midnight become especially important.""In the 1950s, there were atomic bomb tests," McCrossen said."And the countdown to the dropping of the bomb and then to its detonation was televised and people could hear it. And so this was a kind of apocalyptic countdown.
McCrossen notes that some TV announcers in the '60s also started counting down to the new year. But it wasn't until 1979 when the crowd at Times Square in New York first joined in.
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