Galician Literature Day 2018

The Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year Customs and Traditions ppt. from Elizabeth Yu Ellsworth

St. Valentine's Day

St. Valentine's Day from Ana Arias Castro

New Year's Resolutions

A New Year's resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior.

Religious origins

• Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts
• The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.
• In the Medieval era, the knights took the "peacock vow" at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry
• At watchnight services, many Christians prepare for the year ahead by praying and making these resolutions
• This tradition has many other religious parallels.

Popular goals

• Stay fit and healthy-37%
• Lose weight-32%
• Enjoy life to the fullest-28%
• Spend less, save more -25%
• Spend more time with family and friends -19%
• Get organized-18%
• Will not make any resolutions-16%
• Learn something new/new hobby-14%
• Travel more-14%
• Read more-12%

Success rate

The most common reason for participants failing their New Years' Resolutions was setting themselves unrealistic goals (35%), while 33% didn't keep track of their progress and a further 23% forgot about it. About one in 10 respondents claimed they made too many resolutions.

A 2007 study by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning. Men achieved their goal 22% more often when they engaged in goal setting, (a system where small measurable goals are being set; such as, a pound a week, instead of saying "lose weight"), while women succeeded 10% more when they made their goals public and got support from their friends.

Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year's_resolution

New Year's Resolutions

A New Year's resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior.

Religious origins

• Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts
• The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.
• In the Medieval era, the knights took the "peacock vow" at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry
• At watchnight services, many Christians prepare for the year ahead by praying and making these resolutions
• This tradition has many other religious parallels.

Popular goals

• Stay fit and healthy-37%
• Lose weight-32%
• Enjoy life to the fullest-28%
• Spend less, save more -25%
• Spend more time with family and friends -19%
• Get organized-18%
• Will not make any resolutions-16%
• Learn something new/new hobby-14%
• Travel more-14%
• Read more-12%

Success rate

The most common reason for participants failing their New Years' Resolutions was setting themselves unrealistic goals (35%), while 33% didn't keep track of their progress and a further 23% forgot about it. About one in 10 respondents claimed they made too many resolutions.

A 2007 study by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning. Men achieved their goal 22% more often when they engaged in goal setting, (a system where small measurable goals are being set; such as, a pound a week, instead of saying "lose weight"), while women succeeded 10% more when they made their goals public and got support from their friends.

Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year's_resolution

Some historical anniversaries for 2018

This is a list of some relevant historical anniversaries that will be celebrated in 2018:

• 1018: Abd ar-Rahman IV became Caliph of Cordoba.

JANUARY

• 1st January 1993: Czechoslovakia ceased to exist as the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated in the so-called Velvet Divorce.
• 1st January 1993: The European Economic Community eliminated trade barriers and created a European single market.
• 20th January 1993:  Bill Clinton became the 42nd President of the United States.
• 22nd January 1918: Ukraine proclaimed its independence from Russia.
• 1st January 1818: Frankenstein was published by Mary Shelley.

FEBRUARY

• 24th February 1918: Estonia became independent from Russia.

MARCH

• 4th March 1918: the flu pandemic of 1918 began. It killed between 50 to 100 million people worldwide.
• 22nd March 1518: Magellan convinced King Charles I to support his voyage to Spice Islands.

APRIL

• 4th April 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

MAY

• 23rd May 1618: The Thirty Years' War started in Europe. The conflict involved most of the European powers at that time.
• 15th May 1648: The Peace of Westphalia put an end to the Thirty Years' War in Europe.

JUNE

• 14th June 2008: Expo 2008 started in Zaragoza, with the topic "Water and sustainable development".
• 5th June 1968: Robert F. Kennedy (John F. Kennedy's brother) was assassinated in Los Angeles.

JULY

• 18th July 1918: Nelson Mandela was born.

AUGUST

• 7th August 2008: Georgia invaded the breakaway state of South Ossetia, starting a war with Russia as the latter intervened in support of the separatists in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
• 30th August 1993: Russian troops left Lithuania.

SEPTEMBER

• 17th September 1993: Russian troops left Poland.

OCTOBER

• 16th October 1968: US athletes protested against racial discrimination during the Olympic games in Mexico City.

NOVEMBER

• 4th November 2008: Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the USA.
• 11th November 1918: End of World War I (1914-1918), the first major catastrophe of the 20th century.

DECEMBER

• 24th December 1968: Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit the Moon.
• 3rd December 1818: Illinois becomes the 21st state of the Union (the United States of America).