Hallowen

Halloween
Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "hauntedhouses", carving Jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countriesembraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Ireland, PuertoRico, Japan, New Zealand, and occasionally in parts of Australia. In Sweden the All Saints' official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November
History of name
The term Halloween isshortened from All Hallows' Even (both "even" and "eve" are abbreviations of "evening", but "Halloween" gets its "n" from "even") as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day", which is now also known as AllSaints' Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions,until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints' Day from May 13 (whichhad itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentinecalendar. Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated thatday as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holidayremained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar.

History
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain...