Hey there, Smarty Pants, Trustee Nurer here, back with another episode of SmartE Q,

where I answer the awesome questions asked by you, the Smarty Pants.

And today, we've got some great ones, including a special holiday, mythical creatures, video games, and soap. Lots of questions, so let's get smarting.

Our first question comes from Vishal, VP, who asks, how did Juneteenth originate? Great question, VP.

Juneteenth is a holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States.

Here's how it happened.

During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued something called the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

It declared that enslaved people in the Confederate states were free. But there was a problem.

News traveled slowly back then, and the civil war was still going on. In many places,

enslaved people were not immediately told they were free. More than two years later, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas,

and announced that slavery had ended and that all enslaved people were free. That date, June 19th,

became known as Juneteenth, combining the words June and 19th. For generations, black communities

celebrated Juneteenth with gatherings, music, food, parades, and remembrance. In 2021, Juneteenth

became an official federal holiday in the United States. Today, Juneteenth is both a celebration of freedom and an

opportunity to learn about an important chapter in American history. Okay, our next question comes from

Simran, also in Fremont, California, who asks, what are mermaids and unicorns and how did people start to believe in them?

Great question. As you may know or heard about in our Who Smarted episodes, both mermaids and

unicorns are mythical creatures, meaning they come from stories, legends, and imagination,

rather than real life. Mermaids are usually described as having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish.

Long ago, sailors who spent months at sea sometimes reported seeing strange creatures in the water.

Some scientists think they may have actually seen animals like manatees or dugongs

and mistaken them for mermaids. Unicorns are

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