New Year's eve: Google marks end of chaotic 2020 with a cuckoo and confetti

New Year's eve 2021: Google's message for its users is: "Happy New Year's Eve! It's been a cuckoo year, but 2020's clock is ticking.

New Year's eve 2021: The final countdown for the end of the year 2020, which was quite a testing for the world, has begun. Google has already kicked off the celebration with a doodle of an old fashioned bird-house clock which says 2020 on it. The doodle also features other letters of 'Google' colorfully decorated with fairy lights. Google has a message for its users that says, "Happy New Year's Eve! It's been a cuckoo year, but 2020's clock is ticking. The countdown begins now, and when the clock strikes midnight a new year will spread its wings!". The search engine has added extra flair to the celebrations with New Year's confetti.

Here's all you need to know about New Year and New Year's eve

New Year's eve celebration

In many cities across the world, firework displays take place as soon as the clock strikes midnight on the last day of the year (December 31).

Conventionally, Sydney has been the host to one of the first of these celebrations as New Year arrives there before most other major cities. New Year’s Day celebrations vary widely across different cultures, and certain parts of the world have specific traditions associated with the day.

Celebrations such as parties, concerts, parades, church services, family meals etc. are held worldwide on January 1 as part of New Year's Day, and many start celebrating the day before (on New Year's Eve) and go on past midnight into January 1.

New Year's History

Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the beginning of each new year for decades. The city of Babylon in ancient Mesopotamia was where the first New Year's celebrations took place about 4,000 years ago. New year's day is considered to have a Romanian origin. In some cultures, the New Year's Day coincided with the Annunciation of Jesus. In England, the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25 was the first day of the new year until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

The New Year is celebrated first in Oceania, while the last place to celebrate the event is Bakers Island which lies in the central Pacific Ocean.