HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA DAY For my friends Down Under, where I’ll be speaking in a week. Did you know that the history of European Australia is tied to the American Revolutionary War? Back when America was part of the British Commonwealth it was convenient for England to transport its convicts to the Colonies. Indeed, it [...]
January 2012
HISTORY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR This year Martin Luther King Jr Day on January 16 coincides with Religious Freedom Day. Since 1993 the US President proclaims this day as a celebration for religious liberty. It is the anniversary of the passage of Thomas Jefferson‘s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786. Along with Jefferson, [...]
HISTORY OF EPIPHANY January 6 is known in the Christian calendar as Epiphany. It is sometimes called the “Twelfth Night” being the 12th Day of Christmas. It signifies the event of the Magi, or Wise Men visiting the baby Jesus, and is known in certain Latin cultures as Three Kings Day. In the Eastern (Orthodox [...]
HISTORY OF NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS As we mentioned earlier, New Year’s Day celebrations began in pre-Christian times, beginning with the Babylonians in March but changed to January by the Romans. January gets its name from Janus, the two-faced god who looks backwards into the old year and forwards into the new. Janus was also the [...]
