May 11

An annual rite called the Lemuria was performed on this date in ancient Roman times to appease the restless spirits of the dead (Lemures), who materialized on this day to haunt the homes where they had once lived. The Lemuria was also held on the eleventh and thirteenth of May. As part of the rite, black beans (symbolic of the Underworld) were tossed as offerings to the ghosts and a powerful prayer was recited nine times.

On this date in the year 1659, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned all celebrations of Christmas in the New World after declaring the event to be a Pagan festival of superstition and "a great dishonnor [sic] of God." In England, Christmas festivities had been banned by the Puritans seven years earlier. It wasn't until the year 1660 when Charles II was restored to the throne that the law banning the celebration of Christmas was repealed.