Good morning! It's the spring break edition of Hello from the Van. It's a simple question. Why do we have spring break and how long has it been around? The answer? It's been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and it has almost always been tied to religion and work. Before I can get too far into the modern day answer, I need to go back and lay some historical footing, some foundationary facts, if you will. Here are the guideposts. Humans have always been inspired by changes in the weather. Much like the Jedi, I very rarely deal in absolutes. However, this is an absolute I can stand by. Weather has always affected humans and our ability to get things done. From the beginning of time, changes from fall to winter or winter to spring have affected human beings. The transition from winter to spring has inspired festivals and celebrations the world over for millennia. The Greeks even had a three-day festival in the spring, an awakening, if you will, dedicated to the Greek god Dionysus and the Roman god Bacchus. Both represented fertility and growth, which was what the festival was all about. It was a way to take a break, say, hey, the world is great and warm again. Let's party. That same general sentiment is felt by college-age students the world over every March and April. That said, our modern-day iterations of this springtime ritual are quite regional in their size, scope, and rambunctiousness. Looking at you, Florida. Basically, where you live determines a lot of how you celebrate spring break. Let's bring spring break to the modern speed. Let's forget about Greeks for a minute and just talk about spring break in the United States. School schedules, known as academic terms, have been around for hundreds of years. It's just a convenient way to divide up the school year for learning, and it's been around for a very long time. For example, the University of Bologna in Italy has been around since 1088 AD and is the world's oldest university in continuous operation. They used academic terms the entire time. And they too have spring break, but they call it Easter break. And that brings us to the religious component of spring break. Remember earlier how I said that spring break is almost always tied to religion and work? Well, it's still true even today, especially in predominantly Christian countries like Italy and the United States. The modern United States was founded with Christianity in mind, and many Christian religions recognize what is called Holy Week. Holy Week commemorates the final week of Jesus Christ's life and is considered the most sacred week of the year for Christians. What does that have to do with spring break? Well, a lot of those academic calendars we talked about are centered around religious calendars and holidays. Academics and religion have been heavily linked throughout the history of the Western world. You rarely will find one without the other. If you look at many school calendars, you will see Easter break and spring break are combined. They're a weeklong holiday either before or directly after Easter. Basically, it's convenient for the academic calendar to follow the religious calendar. And where do people go for this weeklong break? They tend to migrate somewhere warm and sunny. Florida has been the most popular destination for college students for the last 75 years, while families tend to stay local or to go to the opposite side of the United States to places like California. And if you're wondering how Florida became a hot spot for spring break, well, it wasn't an accident. You see, it started in the mid-1930s in upstate New York, of all places. For those of you who don't know, upstate New York is cold. It is windy. The lakes make it extra frigid. A swimming coach named Sam Ingram from Colgate University in upstate New York decided to take his swimming team to Florida for some early training at a brand new Olympic-sized pool in sunny Fort Lauderdale. Word spread and soon other college swim coaches began a spring training migration to South Florida as well. It then became an annual tradition for swimmers nationwide. According to Dave Roos from How Things Work, quote, Since you can only swim so much, wrinkly fingers and all, the college athletes also excelled at partying. Word got back to campus that Florida wasn't a bad place to spend Easter break, and the flow of northern college students to southern beaches started to pick up through the 1940s and 1950s. Over the last 75 years, the spring break scene in Fort Lauderdale and Florida has expanded greatly. It is estimated that nearly one million college students will visit Florida for spring break, bringing in over $2.7 billion to the Florida economy over a two-week period. So to sum it up, why do we have spring break? Well, because we have Easter break, and because academia and religion have been closely tied for thousands of years. It's a pretty simple one today. And with that, I'm Mimi Fotz, and this has been another episode of Hello from the Van. Okay, so for those of you wondering why my voice sounds weird, I have an epic cold. We've spent spring break just like trying not to die. I was fighting for my life trying to record this episode. So if it sounds weird, that's why. Anyway, happy spring break. Bye.