The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Every year on the second Sunday in May, 96 countries around the world celebrate Mother's Day.

Dozens of other countries celebrate the same thing on different days throughout the year.

Mother's Day wasn't always a thing, however.

Its creation was due to a small number of very determined women and of course greeting card companies.

Learn more about Mother's Day and how it became a holiday on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. everywhere daily. I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but the history of Mother's Day goes back to the ancient Mediterranean.

The ancient Phrygian people who came from the region

which is now modern Turkey had a goddess named Sibaly which was the motherhood

goddess. Sibaly was sort of adopted by the Greeks who put elements of it into their life goddess of Gaya,

their mother goddess of Raya, and the Harvest Mother Goddess of Demeter.

The Romans took the goddess Sibili and turned it into the Magna Madder, or the great mother.

The feast day for the motherhood goddess was really a feast for the goddess and motherhood

not for mothers per se. If anything, mothers had extra duties on the feast day

as far as going to the temple and sacrificing,

and it wasn't a day for doing stuff for mothers or giving them gifts.

Something closer to our modern Mother's Day took place in medieval Europe with Mothering Sunday.

Mothering Sunday wasn't exactly like Modern Mother's Day.

It took place during Lent and it was a respite for fasting during the Lenten season.

The date became sort of a homecoming where people were expected to go back to their mother

church, which was usually the church where they were baptized or their local parish church.

There was also a lot of association with Mary the Mother of Jesus.

Eventually, this only really was a holiday in England and only on the Anglican Church calendar.

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