{"id":1358,"date":"2010-06-22T12:30:11","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/?p=1358"},"modified":"2010-06-22T12:30:11","modified_gmt":"2010-06-22T10:30:11","slug":"a-little-history-of-national-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/22\/a-little-history-of-national-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A little history of National Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tomorrow, June 23, is Luxembourg&#8217;s national holiday. The big party is tonight, in anticipation of the torch-parade and the fireworks display just before midnight. We had a great time last year, as we shared on this blog: <a href=\"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/21\/national-day-is-almost-here\/\">Post 1<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/23\/its-all-the-finale-for-national-day\/\">Post 2<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/24\/luxembourgs-national-day\/\">Post 3<\/a>. In preparation for National Day 2010, we offer you a bit of history, cribbed from the <a href=\"http:\/\/vdl.lu\/F%C3%AAte+Nationale+_+historique.html\">City of Luxembourg&#8217;s website<\/a>. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Luxembourg&#8217;s national holiday began, in the 19th Century, as a celebration of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg&#8217;s birthday. From the start, however, it was rarely celebrated on the reigning monarch&#8217;s actual birthday. The current date, June 23, was fixed in a national act of pragmatism. In 1961, both Grand Duchess Charlotte and Heir Apparent Jean had January birthdays. The weather in January was sure to put a damper on any celebrations. So it was decreed that June 23 (Grand Duchess Charlotte&#8217;s half-birthday) would be the National Holiday. And so it remained, although Grand Duke Henri&#8217;s birthday is in the relatively pleasant month of April.<\/p>\n<p>The day of June 23 is reserved for formal, somber ceremonies. The Grand Ducal family, government ministers, and ambassadors celebrate a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/cathen\/14468c.htm\">Te Deum<\/a> at the national cathedral, followed by a military parade.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight, the Grand Duke makes his way to Luxembourg City to attend the torchlit procession (and to ignore, benevolently, the antics of his subjects).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomorrow, June 23, is Luxembourg&#8217;s national holiday. The big party is tonight, in anticipation of the torch-parade and the fireworks display just before midnight. We had a great time last year, as we shared on this blog: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3. In preparation for National Day 2010, we offer you a bit of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,6,620],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1359,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions\/1359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}