Kiribati moved the International Date Line in 1995 so its eastern islands could celebrate New Year first.
Kiribati consists of islands spread across a vast area of the central Pacific. Before the change, the country's island groups were divided by the date line, meaning parts of the same nation could be on different calendar days. Kiribati shifted its standard time arrangements so the Line Islands, including Kiritimati, would share the same date as the rest of the country.
The adjustment placed Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, among the first inhabited places to enter a new calendar year. This geographic position later made the island a popular example in discussions of who reaches midnight first.
The date line is not a perfectly straight natural boundary; it is an international convention that bends around countries and territories. Samoa also changed its calendar position in 2011, but that is a separate event from Kiribati's 1995 realignment.