March 15 – Patriotic Holidays – Around the World!

Why do countries celebrate certain days as national days? There can be many different reasons, and we can see three of them by looking at three different patriotic holidays celebrated on the same date—today!

Hungary’s March 15 National Day honors the beginning of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence. The Hungarians were fighting against Habsburg rule—basically against Austria—but the Austrian emperor asked the Russian czar for help, and the Austrian and Russian armies crushed the Hungarian revolt.

Even though Hungary ultimately lost the war, the leaders of the revolt such as Lajos Kossuth are among the heroes of Hungary’s history.

J. J. Roberts’s Birthday in Liberia is a national holiday that commemorates the birthday of the first and seventh president of Liberia (from 1848 to 1856, and 1872 to 1876). Liberia was founded and colonized by freed American slaves; the government was modeled on that of the United States, and the capital city was named Monrovia after U.S. President James Monroe. Liberia’s first president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, was born in Virginia in the U.S. on March 15, 1809. Roberts’s mother had been enslaved but was freed, his biological father was the Welshman who had once “owned” his mother, and his stepfather James Roberts was a free African American man who owned a boating business and made quite a bit of money.

In 1829 the Roberts family joined the expedition of formerly enslaved people to the west coast of Africa. In the new settlement of Monrovia, the family started an import-export business, trading palm products, camwood, and ivory to the U.S. and selling American goods in Monrovia. J.J.’s brothers became a bishop and a doctor, but J.J. Roberts became high sheriff of the colony and then governor of Liberia. On July 26, 1847, Roberts declared Liberia independent.

In Liberia, you could celebrate by eating goat soup. The rest of us can enjoy making African-mask collages. (According to “Countries and Their Cultures,” Liberia is home of the “classical” African mask.)