Portal:Holidays

Introduction

A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work including school, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tradition of cultural or religious significance. Holidays may be designated by governments, religious institutions, or other groups or organizations. The degree to which normal activities are reduced by a holiday may depend on local laws, customs, the type of job held or personal choices.

The concept of holidays often originated in connection with religious observances or associated with traditions. The intention of a holiday was typically to allow individuals to tend to religious duties associated with important dates on the calendar. In most modern societies, however, holidays serve as much of a recreational functions as any other weekend days or activities. (Full article...)

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Selected article

Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights or Festival of Rededication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday beginning on the 25th day of Kislev, which can occur in very late November, or throughout December. When Hanukkah begins in the last week of December, it continues into the following January. The festival is observed in Jewish homes by the kindling of lights on each of the festival's eight nights, one on the first night, two on the second, and so on.

In Hebrew, the word Hanukkah is written חנֻכה or חנוכה. The holiday was called Hanukkah meaning "dedication" because it marks the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration under Antiochus IV. Spiritually, Hanukkah commemorates the Miracle of the Oil. According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days - which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate new oil.

Selected biography

Christopher Columbus was a navigator and maritime explorer credited as the discoverer of the Americas. He had noted in his lifetime that he was born in Genoa, Italy. His birth name was Cristoforo Colombo. He eventually became an admiral for the Crown of Castile. Columbus' voyages across the Atlantic Ocean began a European effort at exploration and colonization of the Western Hemisphere. The anniversary of the 1492 voyage, Columbus Day, is observed throughout the Americas and in Spain.

Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check Category:Holidays articles needing attention
Cleanup : see Holiday Cleanup List
Expand : List of included articles, Place the {{WikiProject Holidays}} banner on all article talk pages that fall within the scope of this project, Add them to the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Holidays/Articles
Infobox : Make a Holiday Infobox for each article
Stubs : Review Category:Holiday stubs, Review stubs and add {{Holiday-stub}} to holiday articles
Update : Holidays in the upcoming Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries
Wikify : Check to see if title follows standardized format, Add the Holiday portal template to the See also section of each article, Add appropriate subcategory classification and remove unnecessary super categories to allow for an efficient category tree
Other : Template_talk:Infobox_holiday#Things_to_do; assess all the unassessed articles; review the automatically generated worklist; review recent changes for inclusion in the project