World celebrates Chinese new year

January 29, 2006 Millions of people celebrated the arrival of the Chinese Year of the Dog throughout the world's time zones.

Chinese families spent New Year's Eve cleaning their houses to get rid of bad luck from the past year, before celebrating with reunion dinners.

Throughout China and the world's Chinatowns, dragon dancers danced and fireworks went off to mark the arrival of the new year.

In the Chinese lunar calendar, the Chinese Year of the Dog ends on February 17, 2007, making it 385 days long, or 13 months. The last time a Chinese year was this long was in 1944.