World Arabic Language Day

World Arabic Language Day is celebrated every year on the 18th of December since 2012. The date coincides with the day in 1973 that the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted […]

Christmas

Christmas, Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of fairly recent origin. The earlier term Yule may have derived from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, which referred to the feast of the winter […]

Kwanzaa

Each December there are numerous inquiries about the festival Kwanzaa. This celebration is not a festival originating in any of the 55 African countries nor is it an "African" Christmas […]

Shōgatsu

Shōgatsu, public holiday observed in Japan on January 1–3 (though celebrations sometimes last for the entire week), marking the beginning of a new calendar year. On the eve of the new year, temple bells ring 108 […]

New Year’s Day

New Year festival, any of the social, cultural, and religious observances worldwide that celebrate the beginning of the new year. Such festivals are among the oldest and the most universally observed. The earliest […]

New Year’s Day

In many countries the New Year begins on January 1. However, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, for centuries, other dates marked the start of the calendar, including March 25 and […]

Feast Day of St. Basil

Saint Basil the Great, (born AD 329, Caesarea Mazaca, Cappadocia—died Jan. 1, 379, Caesarea; Western feast day January 2; Eastern feast day January 1), Early church father. Born into a Christian family […]

All Souls’ Day

All Souls’ Day, in Roman Catholicism, a day for commemoration of all the faithful departed, those baptized Christians who are believed to be in purgatory because they died with the guilt of lesser sins on […]

World Braille Day

Each year, we work to get Braille into the hands of more blind people. January 4 marks World Braille Day in celebration of its creator, Louis Braille. Every day, thousands of […]

Epiphany | Theophany

Epiphany, (from Greek epiphaneia, “manifestation”), Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle, at Cana […]