Yi Peng Lantern Festival By Sharon Schweitzer Yi Peng Festival is a Thai celebration held on the evening of the twelfth month’s full moon in the traditional lunar calendar. It is an ancient celebration that was adapted from Brahmin origins and is inextricably linked with Thai Lanna culture. The Lanna culture dates back to the [...]
National Native American Heritage Month By Sharon Schweitzer National Native American Heritage Month is celebrated each year in November. It is a time to celebrate the traditions, languages and stories of Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and affiliated Island communities and ensure their rich histories and contributions continue to thrive with each passing [...]
International Students Day By Sharon Schweitzer In 1939, students of the Medical Faculty at Charles University in Prague held a demonstration to commemorate the formation of an independent Czechoslovak Republic. The Nazis brutally suppressed the gathering, resulting in a student Jan Opletal’s death. Thousands of students turned up at his funeral procession – an event [...]
National Gratitude Month By Sharon Schweitzer In the words of the famous Roman orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the mother of all the others.”. The ancients knew about gratitude. We know about gratitude today, too. It’s one of the first big lessons we learn [...]
National Author’s Day By Sharon Schweitzer The creator of National Author’s Day is still unknown. In 1928, Nellie Verne Burt McPherson, the president of the Bement, Illinois Women’s Club suggested setting aside a day to celebrate American authors. She was a teacher and an avid reader throughout her life. While she was recuperating in the [...]
National Mentoring Day By Sharon Schweitzer National Mentoring Day is the largest celebration of mentoring in the world, taking place each year on October 27th. Devised in 2014 and established as a national holiday in London, England, in 2016 by The Houses of Parliament, National Mentoring Day seeks to pair the thousands of mentoring programs [...]
The Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity By Sharon Schweitzer The Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity takes place every year on October 12 in Argentina. The holiday revisits the day Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas and sparks a conversation surrounding diversity and the importance of indigenous communities. It was first observed in 1914 [...]
Texas Wine Month By Sharon Schweitzer Across the state of Texas, October is known as Texas Wine Month, a 31-day-long celebration of Texas wines and the Texas Wine Industry. The Texas Department of Agriculture has designated the entire month of October as Texas Wine Month. October was selected since the grape harvest is normally finished [...]
Texas Czech Heritage Month By Sharon Schweitzer In 1999, the Texas legislature declared October as officially Texas Czech Heritage month. Since then Czech food, festivals, culture, education, and entertainment have continued to expand throughout the state, while also strengthening the ties between the two regions. That the Czech language is still spoken in Texas is [...]
National Coffee Day By Sharon Schweitzer and Polina Anastassieva Second only to oil, coffee is the most valuable legally traded commodity in the world. We love it, we rely on it, and we drink it in massive quantities. It is estimated that 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed each day worldwide. New Yorkers are [...]