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Halloween is a celebration on 31 October, the eve of All Saints' Day, with roots in Christian and Celtic cultures. Learn about its origins, customs, symbols, and how it is celebrated around the world.
3 days ago · Halloween has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints' Eve. Learn how it evolved over time and how it is celebrated around the world with costumes, jack-o'-lanterns, and trick-or-treating.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- When Is Halloween 2024?
- Ancient History of Halloween
- All Saints' Day
- How Did Halloween Start in America?
- History of Trick-Or-Treating
- Halloween Parties
- Halloween Movies
- All Souls Day and Soul Cakes
- Black Cats and Ghosts on Halloween
- Halloween Matchmaking and Lesser-Known Rituals
Halloween is celebrated each year on October 31. Halloween 2024 will take place on Thursday, October 31.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a ti...
On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheonin Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century, the...
The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Marylandand the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emer...
Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors....
By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide Halloween parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague some celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully lim...
Speaking of commercial success, scary Halloween movieshave a long history of being box office hits. Classic Halloween movies include the “Halloween” franchise, based on the 1978 original film directed by John Carpenter and starring Donald Pleasance, Nick Castle, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tony Moran. In “Halloween,” a young boy named Michael Myers murder...
The American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encourage...
Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help lov...
But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead. In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday—wi...
Oct 21, 2019 · Learn about the origins and evolution of Halloween, from ancient Celtic rituals to Christian festivals, and how it became a global phenomenon. Discover the traditions, symbols, and legends of Samhain, All Hallows' Eve, and All Saints' Day.
- Joshua J. Mark
Learn how Halloween evolved from the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain to a secular celebration with roots in Christianity. Discover the origins of pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating and other customs.
- 3 min
Learn how Halloween evolved from the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain to a global celebration of costumes, candy and superstitions. Explore the history, folklore and customs of Halloween...
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Oct 19, 2020 · Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve, has roots in a pre-Christian Celtic festival called Samhain. Learn how costumes, trick-or-treating, pranks and games evolved from ancient rituals and...
