Celebrations (US)

Labor Day

In the United States and Canada, holiday (first Monday in September) honouring workers and recognizing their contributions to society. In many other countries May Day serves a similar purpose.

In the United States, Peter J. McGuire, a union leader who had founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters in 1881, is generally given credit for the idea of Labor Day. In 1882 he suggested to the Central Labor Union of New York that there be a celebration honouring American workers. On September 5 some 10,000 workers, under the sponsorship of the Knights of Labor, held a parade in New York City ... (100 of 410 words)

A holiday celebrated in most industrialized nations is Labor Day. The first American Labor Day was celebrated in New York City in 1882. The holiday is similar to the May Day celebrations of labor and industrial production held since 1887 in socialist nations though it had a separate origin.

Memorial Day

formerly Decoration Day

in the United States, holiday (last Monday in May) honouring those who have died in the nation’s wars. It originated during the American Civil War (1861–64) when citizens placed flowers on the graves of those who had been killed in battle. A number of places claimed to have been the birthplace of the holiday. Among them, Columbus, Mississippi, held a formal observance for both the Union and the Confederate dead in 1866. By congressional proclamation in 1966, Waterloo, New York, was cited as the birthplace, also in 1866, of the observance in the North.

Martin Luther King JR. Day

in the United States, holiday (third Monday in January) honouring the achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. A Baptist minister who advocated the use of nonviolent means to end racial segregation, he first came to national prominence during a bus boycott by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 and led the 1963 March on Washington. The most influential of African American civil rights leaders during the 1960s, he was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, ... (100 of 259 words) in the United States, holiday (third Monday in January) honouring the achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. A Baptist minister who advocated the use of nonviolent means to end racial segregation, he first came to national prominence during a bus boycott by African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. He founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 and led the 1963 March on Washington. The most influential of African American civil rights leaders during the 1960s, he was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, ...

Thanksgiving

annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag Indians. The American holiday is particularly rich in legend and symbolism.

Plymouth’s Thanksgiving began with a few colonists going out “fowling,” possibly for turkeys but more probably for the easier prey of geese and ducks, since they “in one day killed as much as…served the company almost a week.”

ARTICLEfrom theEncyclopædia Britannica