Imbolc is a pagan holiday celebrated from February 1 through sundown February 2. Based on a Celtic tradition, Imbolc was meant to mark the halfway point between winter solstice and the spring equinox in Neolithic Ireland and Scotland. The holiday is celebrated by Wiccans and ...read more
On February 2, 1887—a few months after an inferno had reduced a third of the commercial buildings in Punxsutawney to ashes—a small group of men ascended a wooded area a mile outside the small western Pennsylvania coal town in search of a local rodent said to possess ...read more
1. The earliest predictor: Shubencadie SamBy virtue of living east of every other celebrity groundhog in North America, Nova Scotia native Sam, a resident of Shubencadie Provincial Wildlife Park in Canada, takes the prize as the earliest to issue a Groundhog Day prediction ...read more
CandlemasFalling midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, February 2 is a significant day in several ancient and modern traditions. The Celts, for instance, celebrated it as Imbolc, a pagan festival marking the beginning of spring. As Christianity spread through ...read more
On this day in 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into ...read more