7 Holidays with Dark Histories
Some major holidays are based on events that were less than festive.
Light-hearted parades and family gatherings mark Thanksgiving in the US, but it also represents the start of a grim era for some Native Americans.
©iStockphoto.com/TD Dolci
The origin stories of some well-known holidays are combinations of myth and legend that can leave out a few stark factual details.
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Here’s a quick look at seven popular celebrations and a bit of the historical nuance that shadows them:
1. Thanksgiving
In the US, the widely-accepted image of the first Thanksgiving is a peaceful picture of European settlers and Native Americans sitting down for a meal of harvest bounty in 1621. Today, Americans gather at the end of November for a feast that reenacts that event and celebrates a spirit of brotherhood.
But historians point out that whatever good feelings there were between the Puritan settlers and local native communities quickly dissolved and led to violent conflict within a generation. Add in the spread of disease from the settlers to indigenous people, as well as the loss of their ancestral lands, and it’s not surprising that many Native American tribes now mark Thanksgiving as a Day of Mourning.
The playful tone of today’s St. Patrick’s Day contrasts with the sometimes brutal life of the man himself (and he had nothing to do with banishing snakes from Ireland, by the way).
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2. St. Patrick’s Day
The day to celebrate all things Irish and the wearing of the green is named for the patron saint of Ireland. In fact, life wasn’t all pints and emerald bunting for the 5th-century figure, who was kidnapped, enslaved, and accused of financial impropriety before his death, which may have occurred on March 17, probably in the year 493 CE.
And it turns out the famed story of Patrick banning snakes from Ireland is pure fiction, as third-century documents prove Ireland was snake-free well before the saint’s birth. In fact, according to naturalists, post-glacial Ireland never had snakes at all.
A street performer entertains the crowd during Purim in Israel, celebrating the Jewish people avoiding a catastrophe in ancient times.
©iStockphoto.com/Jerry Uomala
3. Purim
This ancient holiday has been celebrated in Jewish communities since around 124 BCE. Purim is one of the most lighthearted holidays in the Jewish calendar, marked by pageants, festivals, and colorful costumes. Despite the playful spirit of the celebrations, the historical root of Purim is based on a much darker story: Jews narrowly avoiding being massacred in ancient Persia.
During the rule of King Achashverosh (usually thought to be Xerxes I, who ruled from 486 to 465 BCE), there was a large Jewish population in the Persian empire. The Purim fable holds that the King’s wife Esther cleverly managed to derail a plot by an evil advisor who had conspired to kill all the Jews in the kingdom.
4. Good Friday
While less festive than the other holidays in this list, Good Friday commemorates the brutal flogging, crucifixion, and ultimate death of Jesus of Nazareth on what many scholars believe was April 3, 33 CE.
Observances vary around the world for this holiday, but can include fasting, processions, and special church services.
5. Labor Day
A popular holiday that celebrates workers, this commemorative day off grew out of hard times. When Labor Day was established in 1894 in the US, a good percentage of Americans, including many child laborers, worked long hours in poor and unsafe workplaces.
As part of a worker’s rights movement, the American Railroad Union organized a strike that spread throughout the eastern US in 1877. Heavy-handed industry and government attempts to break the labor action led to violent riots, with over 100 people killed and around 1000 jailed.
A few years later, workers advocating for an eight-hour workday had a violent confrontation with Chicago police during the Haymarket Riot. Momentum for reform built, and in 1894 politicians looking for a way to show support for the working class passed legislation creating a national Labor Day holiday.
6. Valentine’s Day
The exact source of Valentine’s Day is unclear, but there are a number of accounts of important Valentines in early Christianity, all of whom met a violent end.
The first recorded mention of a Valentine, who may have been the basis for the saint, depicted a priest in third-century Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius. The ruler supposedly banned marriage, but Valentine was said to have continued to perform the rite, was discovered, and promptly put to death on February 14.
Another story has it that a later Valentine aided Christian prisoners in escaping from prisons, and he was also executed for his actions on February 14.
A third legend tells the story of an imprisoned Valentine who fell in love with a woman, perhaps the jailer’s daughter, and he sent her the first Valentine’s card, signed “From your Valentine.”
7. Columbus Day
Long an unofficial celebration in the Italian-American community, Columbus Day officially became an American national holiday in 1937.
While the historical record supports that Columbus arrived in the West Indies in 1492, the popular myth was that the explorer “discovered” America. In fact, humans had been living in what is now the US for at least 15,000 years before Columbus arrived.
And, as with Thanksgiving, the first contact with European settlers heralded an era of conflict (although there was war among tribes previous to the arrival of Columbus) and systematic oppression of Native Americans as European immigration to the New World grew.