History

“Trick or treat” is younger than most people think, and it did not start in the United States. The phrase

The Halloween colors are orange and black. Americans have called them “Hallowe’en colors” for more than a century, and in

Witches ride brooms because the people who wrote about witches in the 1400s put them there. The idea took shape

Bobbing for apples most likely came to America from the Halloween parties of Scotland and Ireland, where catching an apple

Candy corn is much older than its link to Halloween. It was first made in the 1880s and sold under

The haunted house as entertainment, a place you pay to enter so that you can be frightened, owes a large

Brides wear veils because the veil has been part of the wedding for so long that it is built into

The custom of carrying a bride over the threshold goes back at least to ancient Rome, and the oldest explanation

Tipping in America was once so unpopular that several states made it a crime. A century ago critics called it

We eat popcorn at the movies because, in the 1930s and 1940s, American theaters found it was the most profitable