Yahoo Lifestyle 45 Fascinating Photos Of New Year's Eve Parties From 1870 Until Today
1.New Yorkers — including a little person dressed as Baby New Year — celebrate 1943's New Year's Eve at Sammy's Bar in the rough-and-tumble Bowery District.
2.This couple celebrating New Year's Eve in Paris in 1940 is just too cute.
3.Here's Diddy at his New Year's Eve party at the Menage nightclub in Miami, Florida, on Dec. 31, 2002 (and yes, this photo is now creepy in retrospect).
4.Here's a New York City nightclub at midnight as the calendar turned to Jan. 1, 1980.
But to be honest, these people and this club look like they were already in the full swing of the '80s!
5.In El Salvador on Jan. 1, 1986, guerrilla rebels — and their massive guns — shake it with women at a New Year's Eve dance.
6.Employees at New York City's legendary Diamond Horseshoe nightclub try to send home some remaining guests long past midnight after their New Year’s Eve celebration in 1940 ("You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!").
7.Five years later showgirls at the same club prepare for their midnight show on Dec. 31, 1945.
8.10 Things I Hate About You star Julia Stiles kisses her boyfriend at the MTV New Year's Eve Party in Times Square, NYC, on Dec. 31, 2000.
9.American soldiers celebrate New Year's Eve at the Copacabana in 1942 ahead of shipping out to the front. ("Tonight they play with balloons," said the photo's original caption. "Tomorrow they may be juggling bombs.")
10.And here US Army soldiers at a military base in Kuwait celebrate at a New Year's Eve party on Dec. 31, 2002. More than 2,000 troops rang in the new year with music, dancing, and non-alcoholic beverages.
11.Studio 54 was the "it" club in New York in the '70s with a hedonistic, anything-goes atmosphere and lots of celebrities. Check out the entertainment below from the New Year's Eve party on Dec. 31, 1977.
12.And here is Studio 54 the next New Year's Eve — in 1978 — when acrobats descended from the rafters.
13.Since I said the club was populated by celebrities, here's one last Studio 54 photo, this time of Diana Ross (sitting with club owner Steve Rubell) at the '78 party.
14.Here's a cool pic — Aussies ring in the New Year at a Bondi rave in Sydney, Australia on Jan. 1, 2000.
15.Joey Buttafuoco and his wife Mary Jo at a 1991 New Year's Eve party. Several months later, on May 19, 1992, Joey's 17-year-old lover Amy Fisher would shoot Mary Jo in the head (not fatally) in the infamous Long Island Lolita Incident.
16.Children on New Year's Eve in 1922 attend a costume party (kudos to the kid in his adorably unproblematic penguin costume).
17.Here young women live it up at the 2003 New Year's Eve countdown party in Shanghai, China.
18.You gotta love English dancer/singer Perri Lister and a friend getting down in maybe the most '80s photo ever taken at a New Year's Eve party on Dec. 31, 1983 at the Cat Club in New York City.
19.Wait — Rocky IV star Dolph Lundgren toasting Grace Jones on Dec. 31, 1985 at the Visage Club in New York City is pretty damn '80s, too.
20.Boys from Doctor Barnardo's "Hope Place" school (for poor and deprived children) in London pose on New Year's Eve, 1929.
21.Seventy-one years later, a crowd celebrates on New Year's Eve leading up to Jan. 1, 2000, in Frankfurt, Germany. In the background, giant Ferris wheels form the new year "2000."
22.Harlem's The Cotton Club is a famous part of Black history, but originally it had a "whites-only" policy for its clientele despite the fact its performers and much of the staff were Black. Below, Cab Calloway (the first Black artist to have a record sell a million copies) leads an orchestra during a New Year's Ball in 1937.
23.Now let's take things WAY back — here's an engraving capturing a New Year's Eve celebration in Ireland as they welcomed in the year 1870.
24.And here's a sketch of a church celebration in Virginia on New Year's Eve in 1900.
25.I was about this girl's age on New Year's Eve in 1999 — she and the rest of the crowd were at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at New Year's Eve.
26.Now how interesting is this? In 1989, less than two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a massive crowd gathered at the foot of the wall to ring in New Year's Eve and celebrate their newfound freedom.
27.And speaking of Germany — here's a bakery worker in Berlin showing off a tray of freshly baked Berliners (jam doughnuts) made in anticipation of hungry customers celebrating New Year's Eve on Dec. 31, 1949.
28.Cabaret artist Mary Barbour dresses as the Spirit of the New Year at a show on New Year's Eve in London, circa 1930.
29.Gotta love that digital camera! It screams 2009...which is when this New Year's Eve party at The Abbey in West Hollywood took place.
30.This one's cool — middleweight champ Sugar Ray Robinson spent New Year's Eve training for his title defense against Gene Fullmer two days later. He would win via knockout (which many call the greatest knockout punch ever).
31.OK, I think these next photos are my favorite. Here is the massive crowd in Times Square on New Year's Eve in 1934.
32.Here's an even bigger crowd in Times Square at midnight on Jan. 1, 1937.
33.Here's Times Square at midnight on New Year's Eve in 1968.
34.And here's Times Square just last New Year's Eve. They really pack 'em in there year after year, don't they?
35.These tables at a 1910 New Year's Eve dinner at a New York City cafe simply could not be pressed any closer together!
36.Revelers at the Monument to Independence in Mexico City celebrate New Year's Eve on Dec. 31, 2019.
37.Over in London, guests and staff danced during New Year's Eve celebrations at the Tavistock Hotel in 1919. (The guy in the middle had to have been dressed up as Charlie Chaplin, right?)
38.Three years later, in 1922 London, streamers fell at a party at the Hotel Victoria:
39.This photo of a German New Year's Eve celebration in 1926 features famous historical figure Leni Riefenstahl (second from the left). She was an innovative filmmaker (that's good!) and Nazi propagandist (that's bad!).
40.Legendary comedy duo (and IRL husband and wife) George Burns and Gracie Allen celebrate New Year's Eve in New York in 1937 — George would live to be 100 and celebrate his last New Year's in 1996!
41.Meanwhile, over in Mumbai, India, Bollywood star Lisa Haydon had a great time with a team of dancers at a New Year's Eve celebration in 2011.
42.Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand, and Queen Sirikit celebrate New Year's Eve in 1961 at the Palace Hotel in Switzerland, where they were vacationing with their kids.
43.I think the photographer at this New Year's Eve party in Toronto back in 1992 had too much to drink. (Just kidding! It's a cool camera effect, though, huh?)
44.Teairra Marí lets loose at Richard "Rip" Hamilton and LeBron James's 2006 New Year's Eve Gala in Detroit.
45.And lastly, the Beatles dress up for their Christmas Show at the Astoria Cinema in London, which, for some reason, was not held on or before Christmas, but on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 1963.
