| Winter holiday (beginning) - Friday February 9, 2018 School holidays :
|
| Carnival - Monday February 12, 2018 Culture :
|
| Valentine's Day - Thursday February 14, 2019 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
|
| Winter holiday (end) - Monday February 19, 2018 School holidays :
|
| Spring holiday (beginning) - Thursday March 29, 2018 School holidays :
|
| Good Friday - Friday March 30, 2018 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.
|
| Easter - Sunday April 1, 2018 Catholic or protestant : Paid holiday
|
| Easter Monday - Monday April 2, 2018 Catholic or protestant : In the year 325, the Council of Nicée determined a date fo Easter. Full Moon would fall the 14th day of a moon month (1). Easter would be marked by the dominical letter(2)and the epactus(3). With the establishment of the equinox ne variatur on March 21, algorithms where elaborated to attribuate a date for Easter whatever the year.
Time between two consecutive new moons: 20 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.8 - Gives a letter code for the year's calendar Age of the moon on January 1st, minus one unity, 0 being the new moon's age.
|
| Spring holiday (end) - Monday April 9, 2018 School holidays :
|
| King's Birthday - Friday April 27, 2018 Secular holiday : Koningsdag from 2014 onwards
|
| Labor Day/May Day - Tuesday May 1, 2018 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 - Thursday May 10, 2018 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.
|
| Mothers' Day - Sunday May 13, 2018 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. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson approved Mother’s Day in 1914
|
| Whitsunday - Sunday May 20, 2018 Catholic or protestant : Not a paid holiday
|
| Summer holiday (beginning) - Friday July 6, 2018 School holidays :
|
| Summer holiday (end) - Monday August 20, 2018 School holidays :
|
