DID YOU KNOW?

People often say to me, "Matt, you must know a lot about Halloween seeing as your birthday is one day later. Can you share some of your knowledge with me?" To which I usually respond "How did you get in my house?"

Breaking and entering notwithstanding, here are some of the facts and trivia I have learned over the years about Halloween.

-Like all of the greatest inventions(1), Halloween was created in America in the early 1600's by the Pilgrims during their first year in the country. Halloween is not, as it is believed now, a celebration of the day before All Saint's Day. It was originally a stand-alone holiday called The Hollowing, where settlers would gather around and hollow out gourds for hours on end.

-There was not much to do in pilgrim times.

-In 1670 the holiday expanded from just gourd hollowing to include the filling of the gourds with candy and simple toys. This was done in response to town elders who complained that in their day they didn't just waste gourds "for shaverings."

-"For shaverings" means "for fun". No one uses this term any more.

-In 1777 the worst Halloween incident of its time occurred when 20 school children, dressed as British soldiers, were surrounded and attacked by Continental soldiers. Every child, to a man, were killed(2).

-Ironically, Abe Lincoln, inventor of the penny, preferred to give away apples to children on Halloween. He claimed giving away bags of pennies was "totally gay."(3)

-John Brown did not lead his attack at Harper's Ferry because of slavery, but because he had been given nothing but boxes of raisins in his Halloween gourd as a child.

-Raisins are a great Halloween treat, if you are willing to take the chance one of the children may lead a slave revolt at your local ferry harbor because of it.

-Halloween has only been suspended twice in American history. Once during the Great Depression and once during the Prohibition, when nothing fun was allowed.

-The first Halloween to have an apple with a razor hidden in it was in 1952, in Spokane, Washington. The culprit, a Mr. Marc Bederman, claims he was only trying to invent a shaving razor you could eat.(4)

-The greatest Halloween tragedy of the 20th century happened in 1969 in the town of South Hill, Illinois. John Dooley, 7, had dressed up as the moon and was attending the town costume pageant when the Apollo 11 shuttle landed on him. The size of the ship crushed everyone in the town square to death, except little John Dooley, who died after Neil Armstrong stabbed him with a flag.

-In 1997 the most popular costume was the "Scream" movie mask. The second most popular costume was Barney, followed closely by "Slutty Barney".

-Medical science shows that anyone who has ever thrown eggs at a house on Halloween has died a long, lonely death.(5)

1) except bacon(6)

2) At the time of their death, the children had succeeded in taking control of Trenton, New Jersey.

3) Despite being The Great Emancipator(7), Lincoln was not considered very P.C., even for his time

4) That would be awesome.

5) As a virgin(8)

6) the food, not Francis

7) The Great Emancipator would be a great name for a wrestler, why the WWE hasn't snatched it up yet is beyond me

8) So don't even think about it(9)

9) Seriously