Every year on Oct. 31, children all over the United States look forward to a Halloween
night complete with costumes, candy, and maybe even a jaunt through a "haunted" house, as
they run from door to door yelling, "Trick or treat!"
Compared to this eerie holiday's start, today's celebrations are a "ghost" of Halloween history.

Halloween comes to us from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter. Winter meant long hours of darkness and the Celts
believed that this darkness brought evil spirits. To keep the spirits away, they built bonfires and burned sacrifices. They also wore costumes made of animal heads and skins, and believed that on this night they could predict each other's futures.

By A.D. 43, Rome had conquered the Celts and added their own traditions to Halloween.
They added a tribute to Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, which is where today's custom of bobbing for apples comes from. Apples played a large role in some Halloween
customs involving love and romance. It was believed that if you peeled an apple in one long
peeling without breaking it, and then threw it over your shoulder, that the peel would form the initials of your true love. On the other hand, if you placed an apple under your pillow, you would dream of your future spouse.

By the 800s, Christianity had spread into Celtic territory, and the pope designated Nov. 1 as
All Saint's Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It was also called "Allhallows," which
meant "all saints" in the Middle English language. Thus, October 31 became "All Hallows Eve"
or ultimately "Halloween."

There are many strange customs and facts associated with Halloween. Some of the more popular ones are jack-o-lanterns, dressing up, and trick-or-treating.

Jack-o-lanterns are made by carving a face into a pumpkin. In fact, 99 percent of all pumpkins sold are used for this purpose, according to a recent web survey. Pumpkins aren't the only thing ever used to make jack-o-lanterns. The Irish used turnips, but when they came to America and found that turnips weren't as plentiful, they switched to pumpkins. Legend says that a man named Jack died and was cursed to roam the Earth carrying a hollowed-out turnip with a burning ember inside until Judgment Day. He was banned from both heaven and hell due to his miserly ways and the tricks he had played on the devil.

The tradition of dressing up in costume has both European and Celtic

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