Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival/Lunar New Year, is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. The Chinese New Year period lasts for 15 days, beginning on the first day of the first lunar month of the Chinese calendar. The holiday period ends on the 15th day of the festival. Chinese New Year is also the time when the largest human migration takes place when overseas Chinese all around the world return home on the eve of Chinese New Year to have reunion dinners with their families.

According to legend, in ancient China, nian ("Nyan"), a man-eating beast from the mountains, could infiltrate houses silently to prey on humans. The people later learned that nian was sensitive to loud noises and the color red, so they scared it away with explosions, fireworks and the liberal use of the color red. So guo nian actually means surviving the nian. These customs led to the first New Year celebrations. Celebrated internationally in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese. Chinese New Year is considered to be a major holiday for the Chinese as well as ethnic groups who were strongly influenced by Chinese culture. This includes Japanese, Koreans, Miao (Chinese Hmong), Mongolians, Vietnamese, Tibetans, the Nepalese and the Bhutanese (see Losar).

Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was a famous leader of the American civil rights movement, a political activist, and a Baptist minister. In 1964, King became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1977, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter. In 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a United States holiday, only the fourth Federal holiday to honor an individual. In 2004, King was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. King's most influential and well-known public address is the "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.