This year Dussehra will be celebrated on October 24, 2023. Dussehra is one of the major Hindu festivals that marks the end of Navaratri (9 nights). Navaratri lasts for nine nights and Dussehra is celebrated on the tenth night of the festivities. Dussehra is also known as Vijayadashami or Durgotsav.
Dussehra celebrates the conquest of good over evil, light over darkness and wisdom over ignorance. The festival celebrates two victories, one, Goddess Durga over the demon king Mahishasura and the other of Lord Rama over the evil king Ravana.
The Legend Of Goddess Durga And Mahishasura
Mahishasura was a demon who invaded heaven defeating Indra and driving the devas out of heaven. The gods decided to combine all their powers to create a powerful being that would be able to destroy Mahishasura. The powerful being they created was called Goddess Durga and they bestowed upon her their super-weapons. Navaratri is said to be the 9 days of battle between Goddess Durga and Mahishasura where the goddess finally destroyed the demon on the 10th day.
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Lord Rama And Demon King Ravana
Lord Rama was a great warrior and noble king. The demon Ravana had ten heads. The demon Ravana kidnapped Rama’s wife, Sita and wanted her as his own wife. Lord Rama and the demon Ravana were equally strong and brave. After a fierce and mighty battle, lord Rama defeated and killed Ravana.
Halloween originated from an ancient harvest festival. Over 2,000 years ago, the Celts celebrated a Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”).
Samhain signified the end of the summer and the beginning of winter. The Celts celebrated Samhain to make their gods happy so that the gods would protect them and their crops during the long and hard winter. Celts also celebrated New Year’s Day on November 1. They believed that the night before the New Year (October 31) was a time when the spirits visited the Earth. The Celts were worried that the evil spirits would cause them harm and damage their crops.
The Celts lit huge bonfires to keep unwanted spirits away from their homes and villag-es. The bones of dead cattle and sheep were cast into these fires.
The Celts asked their gods to protect cattle and food stores during the long, hard winter. They prepared huge feasts for both the living and the dead. The Celts ate the food that they had collected during the harvest, so the feast would consist of things like: nuts, berries, carrots, apples, and turnips. They also prepared offerings that were left outside villages, for the spirits of the deceased and for other beings such as fairies During the celebration, the Celts enjoyed storytelling around bonfires.
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How Halloween Got Its Name
Over one thousand years ago, the Christian church named November 1st as ‘All Saints’ Day, also called ‘All Hallows’, which was a traditional English term. This was a holy day to commemorate the saints. The night before All Hallows was named Hallows’ Eve Many years later, the name was changed to Halloween.
Halloween Spreads To The US
During 1845 and the years that followed, over a million people left Ireland due to a famine. As a result, the US had many new Irish im-migrants. These immigrants brought the Celtic traditions of Samhain to the US, which would eventually become Halloween.
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Word Check
The Celtic religion was polytheistic, meaning they worshipped more than one God. In fact, the Celtic religion is thought to have had over 300 gods. The Celts would sacrifice animals to their gods, and they believed in an afterlife.
The Celts were a group of people who spoke Celtic languages. They lived during the Bronze and Iron Age periods. The Celts were spread across Europe, living in areas including France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, Britain, and Ireland.
Dressing Up On Halloween
The Celts also believed that the ghosts would walk among the living on Earth. They were worried that the evil spirits would cause problems. hurt or even kill them. So on Halloween night people wore costumes of ghosts or other wicked creatures. They believed if they dressed in frightening cos-tumes, their disguise would confuse the spirits and they would think they were also dead and not hurt them.
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Trick-Or-Treating On Halloween
To keep the ghosts away from their homes, people started keeping bowls of food outside their doors. Over time, people started eating these nice treats themselves. Some say this was the start of trick-or-treating. Some other stories claim that trick-or treating started when people started giving out cakes in return for prayers for their dead relatives.
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Carving Jack-O’-Lanterns
According to legend, Jack was a very mean person who played tricks on peo-ple. When he died, he was not allowed into heaven or hell. So he had to walk the Earth and he used a hallowed turnip with a light inside it to guide him. This is how “Jack of the Lantern” started, which is now popularly known as “Jack-o’-Lantern”. When the Europeans came to the US, they started using pumpkins instead of turnips to carve their Jack-o’ Lanterns.
The 19th Asian Games 2023 were held in Hangzhou, China from September 23 to October 8. India reached an unprecedented milestone of 107 medals (28 gold, 38 silver, and 41 bronze) at the Asian Games 2023. India finished 4th in the overall medal’s tally.
This is the first time in history, India has achieved this remarkable feat. Team India’s previous best was set at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. China topped the list with 383 medals.
Take a look at the full list of India’s medallists:
Scientists have discovered a new continent that had & been missing from our knowledge for 375 years and have created a detailed map of it. This continent, called Zealandia, is mostly underwater but consists of a group island, similar to New Zealand.
Zealandia was originally part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, Which existed about 1 billion to 542 million years ago. They gathered data by studying rock samples from the ocean floor. Zealandia is a vast continent, about six times the size of Madagascar, covering 4.9 million square km. It’s the eighth continent discovered, and it’s the smallest, thinnest, and youngest one.
Recently, a capsule carrying samples of a distant asteroid, collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed safely in the desert in Utah (US). These samples are the largest amount of asteroid material ever returned to Earth and were taken from a mountain-sized asteroid named Bennu. Scientists believe that this sample could help them answer the age-old question: where do we come from?
OSIRIS-REx was launched in 2016, and spent two years travelling through space to reach Bennu. The goal of the mission was to collect samples from the asteroid.
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Bennu is over 320 million km away from the Earth. When the spacecraft reached the asteroid, It began to orbit it. Finally, in 2020, the spacecraft touched the surface of the asteroid for the several seconds, using a special arm to blow air and suck up dust and pebbles. Since then, the OSIRIS-REx has been heading back towards the Earth. The Capsule has been taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center In Houston, Texas, where a very special lab has been set up to handle the asteroid sample.
System, and how life might have begun on the Earth. Scientists will look for chemicals that are important to life, such as amino acids – the building blocks of proteins.
What is asteroid Bennu?
Asteroid Bennu is a very big mass of rock weighing around 78 billion kg, in space. According to NASA, the asteroid probably broke off a much bigger one around 2 billion years ago. Because Bennu looks so similar to asteroids found on Earth scientists think it could contain some of the universe’s oldest ma-terials. This is why NASA is so keen to investigate it – it could help scientists find out more about where we come from.
