Haiti : public and bank holidays, closure of banks, stock exchanges, school vacations

cards/flowers : Introduced by Pope Gelasus in 498, perhaps in response to a local Roman tradition of lovers writing their names on an urn in February

School holidays :

Secular holiday : Lundi Gras, afternoon only

Secular holiday :

Catholic or protestant : Christian observance to begin the 40 day season of Lent. Ashes are marked on worshippers as a sign of penitence.

School holidays :

Culture : Ratification of the Constitution

School holidays :

Culture : A former slave who became a general in the French army of Napoleon, Toussaint Louverture (1743 - 1803)established a new constitution of the Dominican Republic.

Catholic or protestant : The First Council of Nicaea (a gathering of bishops in the early days of Christianity) wanted to find a day to commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. This commemoration had to be linked to Jewish holiday traditions, since the last supper of Christ was believed to be a Jewish Passover meal. But the Jewish calendar is based on lunar and solar cycles, so the Easter celebration had to follow the same calendar.

Catholic or protestant : Not a paid holiday

School holidays :

Secular holiday : Chicago, Saturday May 1st, 1886: 350,000 workers go on strike to call for an 8-hour working day. Industries are paralyzed nationwide. On Monday, as demonstrations go on, the police open fire. On Tuesday, Chicago is again on strike. Following a bomb launched against them, the police shoot again. 12 dead, of which 7 policemen. 8 anarchists will be condemned and executed. In 1889, the Socialist International Movement met in Paris and declared this day international workers' day . The Soviets will follow suit, just as the Nazis. In France, under the Vichy regime (1940-1944), the celebration is renamed Labour Day .

cards/flowers :

Secular holiday : Originally, the university flag was blue and red. On June 21, 1964, the Duvalier regime changed the colours to black and red. The decision was reverted in 1987.

cards/flowers : Mother’s day has evolved in many countries in different ways. This is because mother’s day has different origins in different countries and therefore occurs on different days in the year. One school of thought claims that this day emerged from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus, was held on March 15 to March 18 around Asia Minor. They insist that this custom spread around the world. Mothering Sunday is the celebration of motherhood in the United Kingdom. It is also known as Mid-lent Sunday, Rose Sunday and Laetare Sunday. It originally comes from the Victorian practice of allowing servants to return home to visit their mothers on this day. In the United States, Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 - October 17, 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet. Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 and quickly became one of the most popular songs for the Union during the American Civil War. After the war she focused her activities on the causes of Pacifism and women’s suffrage. In 1870 she was the first to proclaim Mother’s Day, with her Mother’s Day Proclamation.

Catholic : Commemorates the Last supper. Pope Urban IV ordered the observance of such a feast in 1264, and in the following century it became universal in the Western Church. For six hundred years that feast was observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but in 1970 the new Roman Missal, while retaining that day for some countries, provided that in others the feast be observed on the Sunday after Trinity.

cards/flowers :

Culture :

cards/flowers : Remembrance of the 2010 earthquake

School holidays :

Catholic : Dogma defined by the Catholic Church on November 1, 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared that at the end of her life, Mary's body and soul were assumed into Heaven.