The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

On October 31st every year, we celebrate Halloween.

It is especially popular in the United States, where we use the holiday as an excuse for kids to dress up and ask for candy and for adults to dress up and drink.

But why do we dress up and what's the deal with pumpkins and what does this have anything to do with witches?

Learn more about the history of Halloween and how so many unrelated things got lumped together

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. everything everywhere daily. As with pretty much every holiday, the origins of Halloween have an ancient past.

The first thing to address in understanding the holiday

would be the word Halloween itself. November 1st is the Catholic Holy Day of

All Saints Day, which as the name implies honors all the Saints.

The older English term for the day was All Hallows Day or Hallomass.

The day after All Saints Day is All Souls Day.

Correspondingly, the day before All Hallows Day is All Hallows Eve, and the celebration of All Hallows Day would have begun after sunset on All Hallows Eve.

Halloween basically means Saints Evening with the een part coming from a truncated word in

Scots for evening.

The collection of Hallows Eve, Hallows Day, and All Souls Day were collectively known

as All Hallo Tide. The first actual use of the word

Halloween was from 1775. Many of the traditions surrounding this holiday date back to the

Celtic pagan festival of Sowin.

Sowin was celebrated on November 1st with, just like All Saints Day, a celebration

starting the night before.

Sowin was the end of the harvest season in the start of the winter and the biggest

celebration in the Celtic calendar. As Christianity spread the explicit pagan

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