The world transitioning from one quarter century to the next on New Year’s Day 2026 may be a nice bit of trivia in itself.
But, as you know, we love completely nerding out about things like this—and since you’re here, we assume that you do, too. So, here’s our list of quarter-century facts to warm our nerdy hearts, and to keep the conversation going at the New Year’s party. (Although, on closer inspection, we find these facts are not just fun—they also reveal some interesting details about how we measure time.)
Samoa and Tokelau Celebrate 18 Hours Later
As the clock chimes midnight on January 1, 2026, exactly 9131 days will have passed since the beginning of the century on January 1, 2001.
But strictly speaking, that’s not quite true for some island dwellers in the South Pacific Ocean. A lot has changed in the world of time and date in the past 25 years, and that includes Samoa and Tokelau redrawing the International Date Line. In 2011, the Pacific islands switched from the east of the line to the west, effectively skipping December 30.
In the same way, they will have one day less overall this century. This means that, based on the number of hours, they will reach the quarter-century mark at 18:00:00 local time on January 1.
Of course, the same could be said about people who have moved to a different time zone since 2001. But who’s splitting hairs?
No-One Knows the Exact Moment
Did someone say ‘splitting hairs?’ Well, if you insist: If we’re counting seconds, we don’t yet know when the quarter-way point of the century will fall.
On the clock, the first 25 years of the 21st century equal precisely 788 918 400 seconds. However, Earth’s spin has slowed down ever so slightly over the years—at least up until recently. That’s why a total of five leap seconds have been inserted since 2001: the first one in 2005 and the last one in 2016.
2025 had the shortest days since atomic clocks were inventedHere’s the catch: Earth’s rotational speed varies in ways that are difficult to predict. So we can’t say for sure how many more leap seconds will be added before the end of the century.
But there are also proposals to change the “rules” for leap seconds. If these are adopted, it would mean we wouldn’t need any leap seconds for at least a hundred years. In this case, the quarter-way point of the century in terms of seconds would be 3.75 seconds before the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2026.
Seasons Come 11 Minutes Earlier than in 2001
The modern Gregorian calendar is quite accurate in reflecting the true length of a year, as defined by the average time it takes for the seasons to repeat as the Earth completes roughly a full orbit around the Sun. This is called a tropical year.
But it’s not 100% accurate, and a quarter century is a perfectly sized time span to illustrate that.
Our calendar is off by one day every 3236 years or so—or about 27 seconds per year. Even with leap days taken into account, an average calendar year is very slightly longer than an average tropical year, so each year, seasons begin a tiny bit earlier on the calendar than the previous year.
Since early 2001, Earth has outpaced our calendars by roughly 11 minutes. So, based on the calendar, seasonal events like the March equinox will happen about 11 minutes earlier on average than they did in 2001.
How accurate are other calendar systems?Half Decade in 2025, Quarter Century in 2026
Are you wondering why we claim that the first 25 years of the century will have passed on New Year’s Day 2026—instead of 2025? It’s not a mistake, and it reveals another quirk of humankind’s timekeeping system.
You see, the Gregorian year count started with year 1, and there was never a year zero. That’s why the century didn’t start in the year 2000, but a year later, on January 1, 2001. As a result, the century’s first 25 years will have elapsed on New Year’s Day 2026.
Interestingly, though, if you asked us what year marked the halfway point of the decade, we would actually pick 2025.
To be fair, there’s no right or wrong answer here. But, purely based on how we talk about time spans, we believe decades can be said to start with round years, while centuries and millennia don’t.
timeanddate.com was born before the century (we’re older than Google)
1305 Mondays, 175 Money Bags, and 6 Leapling Birthdays
Still here? Congratulations, you’re a true time and date nerd! So, let’s round this off with a final deep dive into our stats:
- If you love Mondays, you will be thrilled to know that you have had the privilege of living through precisely 1305 of them (plus 1305 Tuesdays and 1305 Wednesdays) since the start of the century. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, on the other hand, were in slightly shorter supply, with 1304 each.
- Any day of the week can be great for skywatching, and the past 25 years have been littered with extraordinary sky events. Among them were both the longest solar eclipse and the longest lunar eclipse this century.
- We also had 175 chances to notice that the so-called “Money Bags” or “MiracleIn” myth spreading through social media is precisely that: a myth. It claims that a particular combination of days of the week within a month only happens every 823 years. In reality, the calendar is full of it, with 175 occurrences in the past 25 years alone.
- Many people may think of March 21 as the date of the March equinox. However, at least in UTC, this only happened twice in the past 25 years: in 2003 and 2007. What’s more, it won’t happen again this century.
- Leaplings—people born on February 29—have only had six chances this quarter century to celebrate their birthday on the actual date they were born.