What to know before Halloween

Plus: Julia Child and JFK |

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. SUBSCRIBE to TIME Magazine October 26, 2017 By Lily Rothman With Halloween right around the corner, we are getting our costumes ready, carving our pumpkins and, of course, preparing to show up at our Halloween parties armed with historical knowledge about the holiday. Case in point: here's what to know about the medieval Christian origins of trick-or-treating. As it turns out, that candy-fueled custom can be traced back to a tradition that was believed to affect a soul's fate in the afterlife. And the history side of Halloween doesn't stop there. You can also read up about early 20th-century romantic rituals for the day, what we can learn from cemeteries and haunted houses, how Halloween got started centuries ago, and check out these photographs from Halloween parties past. Here's more of the history that made news this week: HISTORY ON TIME.COM Where Does the ‘Thumbs-Up’ Gesture Really Come From? Ancient Romans did use the thumbs-up gesture, but back then it didn't mean "good job" The Story Behind Jeff Flake's Teddy Roosevelt Quote While announcing he wouldn't run for reelection, Flake used a favorite quote about criticizing presidents See Julia Child in France as Captured by Her Husband’s Camera Paul Child, best known as the husband of chef Julia Child, was a masterful artist in his own right, as his photographs make clear What to Know About the Final JFK Assassination Documents By law, the last remaining records pertaining to the Kennedy assassination are to be processed by Thursday. Here's what to know 50 Years Ago This Week: Washington’s Biggest Peace Protest Also in this issue: long hair and KGB spies FROM THE TIME VAULT Today in 1959: TV’s Private Eyes “His work habits are abominable. He is busiest when the sky over the city is a grey suspicion of dawn, the hour when streetwalkers quit, grifters count their take, and busted junkies begin to jitter with the inside sweats. He is a loner, but his world is filled with friends. He knows the cop with the abused arches, the complaisant heiress, the slick saloon proprietor, the sick comic, the sullen stoolie who talks in the guarded whisper of cell block and exercise yard. He is furiously honest, but he can spot a rigged wheel with a sharper's skill. He is hard-muscled, handsome, handy with a snub-nosed, 38, and his hide is as tough as the bluing on a pistol barrel. Decent, disillusioned and altogether incredible, he is a soap opera Superman. He is television's ‘Private Eye.’” (Oct. 26, 1959) Read the full story This Week in 1941: Stalin at War “The Battle of Russia had become in tensely personal to Joseph Stalin. His own life, which he had so zealously guarded with such alphabetical horrors as OGPU and NKVD, was endangered now by a horror called TNT. His own three rooms in the Kremlin were threatened: on seven occasions within a week bombs had fallen inside the old fort. But Joseph Stalin could not let this immediacy dazzle his eyes and stop his mind. He had to chop his way out of a thicket of decisions—about Moscow's de fense, about moving the Government to old Samara, now called Kuibyshev, about defending the Donets Basin, about the Volga, the Urals, the Far East, about Russia's present and Russia's future." (Oct. 27, 1941) Read the full story 20 Years Ago: Better Schools “What makes a good school? There are no stock answers, like wardrobe or testing or size. But there are some universal truths. A good school is a community of parents, teachers and students. A good school, like a good class, is run by someone with vision, passion and compassion. A good school has teachers who still enjoy the challenge, no matter what their age or experience. A good school prepares its students not just for the SATs or ACTs but also for the world out there.” (Oct. 27, 1997) Read the full story HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Look it up This Tim Carmody post at Kottke.org examines how the concept of card catalogs influenced the modern way of thinking. Frankly At Slate, Aisha Harris looks at the evolving way that Gone With the Wind—still one of the most acclaimed and beloved films in American cinematic history—is being presented in theaters and classrooms around the nation. Nazis in Hollywood Historian Steven J. Ross writes for the Washington Post about the remarkable story of Georg Gyssling, who was dispatched to L.A. by Hitler’s Nazi government but ended up a double-agent who passed information the U.S. side. “They were kept back” Rep. John Lewis spoke in Washington, D.C., about how he believes that women have been discriminated against within the civil-rights movement, reports Darren Sands of BuzzFeed. Capital Ideas The surprising link between the Civil War and Karl Marx gets the JSTOR Daily treatment from Matthew Wills. To Unsubscribe Unsubscribe here if you do not want to receive this newsletter. Update Email Click here to update your email address. Privacy Policy Please read our Privacy Policy. TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. For Further Communication Please email history@time.com TIME Customer Service 3000 University Center Drive Tampa, FL 33612-6408 Connect with TIME Find TIME on Facebook Follow TIME on Twitter Subscribe to more TIME Newsletters Get TIME on your Mobile Device Get TIME on your iPad Subscribe to RSS Feed