New Year’s Eve in central London is something everyone has to experience at least once in their lifetime.
But anyone who has been on the Thames, Trafalgar Square or Piccadilly Circus when the clock strikes 12 would know that it can also mean sacrificing personal space.
But the vast crowds drawn into central London are not a new phenomenon and people have celebrated in the capital for decades.
As the pictures in the gallery above show, revellers were shoulder-to-shoulder while watching the countdown on the Piccadilly Circus billboards in 1955 and 1956.
Across the Atlantic in Times Square, New York City residents donned their warmest coats, gloves and black-striped hats to ring in the New Year with thousands of others.
Other images depict partiers paddling in the freezing waters of the Trafalgar Square fountain in 1954 while the Piccadilly Hotel was also a hotspot to look for that New Year’s kiss.
Click through the gallery at the top for more vintage photos of people ringing in the new year around the world.
Happy New Year!
