Today’s my birthday, and it occurred to me that I’d hardly ever thought about birthdays and the origin of cakes, candles, and singing off-key;) Birthdays are a special time for practically every culture, a time to honor a person’s life and remind them how special they are to us. Like many modern holidays, people were celebrating birthdays a long time before any of us ever had one. Once again, the mighty Roman Empire is largely responsible for spreading the idea in Western Europe, and the nations that came after them spread it to the New World. In fact, the Roman naming day, or dies lustricus, was originally a lot more important. Birthdays were first celebrated in Rome by the cult of Mithraism, a mystical religion that worshipped the Persian Sun God Mithra. It was popular among Roman soldiers, who traveled far and wide and spread their beliefs. When Christianity became popular, the custom remained, and the Romans adapted customs from and other holidays, wearing Roman costumes, feasting, and giving gifts.
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