Month: October 2019

Festivals Acadiens

Festivals Acadiens is a combination of several festivals (food, music, crafts, and more) to celebrate Cajun culture in Lafayette, Louisiana. The Bayou Food Festival offers a range of Cajun cooking from crawfish gumbo to alligator sausage to corn maque-chou. The Louisiana Crafts Festival features handmade Cajun crafts and demonstrations by blacksmiths, decoy carvers, alligator skinners, and storytellers. The Festival de Musique Acadienne features centuries-old music sung in French. Lectures and workshops on the Acadian language and history are also part of the weekend. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Pattens

Pattens are various types of wooden-soled footwear, such as sandals or clogs, worn by men and women of the Middle Ages to increase their height or to keep their feet out of the mud or dirt of the street. In use until the early 20th century, pattens were worn outdoors over normal shoes and held in place by leather or cloth bands. Their name is derived from the Middle English word patin, which may come from the Old French word pate, meaning what? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Ironman Triathlon Championships

This grueling international athletic contest has been held since 1978 in Hawaii on Hawaii Island. It consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle race, and, for the final leg, a standard 26.2-mile marathon run. Close to 2,000 stout-hearted men and women participate, preceding the races with a Thursday night party in which they stoke up on carbohydrates. Cash prizes are now awarded at a banquet the day after the triathlon. The event is scheduled for the Saturday nearest the full moon in October so that more beach is exposed at low tide, and there is more light from the moon at night. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Charles Peace

Peace was a notorious mid-19th-century English burglar and murderer whose life spawned many romanticized works of fiction, including dozens of novels and films and even a comic strip. After stints in prison and a criminal career spanning decades, Peace was finally captured and imprisoned on charges of burglary and the attempted murder of a police officer. He was then tried for a past murder and was sentenced to death. Peace is mentioned by name in what Sherlock Holmes short story? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

General Pulaski Memorial Day

Count Casimir Pulaski first arrived in America in 1777 to help General George Washington and the Continental Army overthrow the British. It was on October 11, 1779, that the Polish count died while trying to free Savannah, Georgia, from British control. The president of the United States proclaims October 11 as Pulaski Day each year, and it is observed with parades and patriotic exercises in communities in Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. The biggest Pulaski Day parade takes place in New York City on the first Sunday in October. Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Blackbirding

Blackbirding refers to the recruitment of people through kidnapping and fraud to work on plantations, particularly the sugar cane plantations of Fiji and Queensland, Australia, in the latter half of the 19th century. Those “blackbirded” were kidnapped from the indigenous populations of Australia or nearby Pacific islands. In 1872, the British Parliament passed a law in an attempt to curtail the practice, but it continued until the turn of the century. How did blackbirding get its name? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

Neopaganism

Neopaganism is an umbrella term for a variety of modern religious movements, particularly those inspired by the pre-Christian traditions of the Egyptians, Greeks, Norse, and Celts. Neopagans fall into two broad categories, nature-oriented and magical groups, and often engage in arcane and elaborate rituals. Two of the movement’s most influential thinkers were Alphonse L. Constant and Gerard Encausse, who helped popularize the movement in the 19th century. What is the largest Neopagan religion? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary