Labor Day/May Day
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Wednesday may 1, 2024
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 .
Ascension
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Thursday may 9, 2024
Catholic or protestant : Forty days after Easter, always on a Thursday. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared before his disciples and gathered them to tell them to baptize and spread the good word. He then ascended to heaven on a cloud.
Pentecost
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Sunday may 19, 2024
Catholic or protestant : Not a paid holiday
Corpus Cristi
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Thursday may 30, 2024
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.
Confederation Day
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Thursday august 1, 2024
Secular holiday : Instaured at the end of the XIX century. The date refers to an agreement made at the beginning of August 1291 between Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden. Traditional observance includes bonfires on the the mountains and celebrations in the communities, occasions for patriotic speeches. Modern observance, fostered by the Tourist offices, include fireworks.
Federal Fasting Monday
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Monday september 16, 2024
Secular holiday : A religious holiday with a ecumenical background instaured in the 19th century.