HISTORY OF NEW YEAR’S DAY We have the Romans to thank for celebrating New Year’s Day on January 1. It wasn’t always that way. Indeed, previous civilizations celebrated it in March, to observe the “new year” of growth and fertility. Before calendars existed the time between seed sowing and harvesting was considered a cycle or [...]
secular
HISTORY OF VETERANS DAY A professor once commented, “We write things down so we can forget them.” Now, of course this is wrong, except in the limited sense of writing down appointments so we don’t have to worry about missing meetings. But that’s just it, we do forget things. As individuals we forget things that [...]
MAY DAY May Day is many things to many people. Etymologically, it is a homophone for the international call for help. It is a corruption of the French imperative “M’aidez” meaning “Help me!” As a holiday it is claimed by many. It is known in the pagan world as Beltane, a fertility celebration, one of [...]
.!. THE YEAR It’s obvious that Jesus was born on December 25, A.D. 1, right? Wrong. We do know that Herod the Great (who killed all the babies in Bethlehem younger than 2 years of age) died in the spring of 4 B.C., and the king was quite alive during the visit of the Wise [...]
HISTORY OF VETERANS DAY A professor once commented, “We write things down so we can forget them.” Now, of course this is wrong, except in the limited sense of writing down appointments so we don’t have to worry about forgetting things. But that’s just it, we do forget things. As individuals we forget things that [...]
GUY FAWKES DAY For our friends across the Pond November 5th is known as “Bonfire Night” or “Guy Fawkes Night”, and all over Britain people fire off fireworks, light bonfires, and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes. Guido Fawkes was an Englishman who, in popular legend, tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament with barrels [...]
