Another year, another winter ... but tonight's winter solstice will be a little bit different than year's past.

According to Vox, December 21, 2014 will not only be the longest night of the year, it will also be one of the longest nights EVER, at least since the planet began spinning billions of years ago. So make sure you have plans lined up, you don't want to let all that extra time go to waste!

Earth's rotation slows over time by anywhere 15 to 25 millionths of a second and it was this rotation that made the length of a day increase from six hours to our standard 24 hours. Tidal acceleration account for the extra long night on the solstice, the Earth encounters friction from the tides as it rotates, which slows it down ever so slightly.

The longest night in Earth's history likely occurred in 1912, and tonight's winter solstice could have taken the crown if it wasn't for that pesky thing otherwise known as climate change. Melting polar ice redistributes Earth's mass, speeding up the planet's rotation speed.

So what else happened on the actual longest night of the year? Well, on December 21, 1912, Denmark, Norway and Sweden declared neutrality in the Comende war. After shaking hands, they hopefully took advantage of the longest night on earth ever!