St. Patrick's Day, the other half of the drinking holiday

Did you know that there's more to St. Patrick's Day than getting completely wasted on green beer and wearing green? Here's a brief history of the most Irish of days, from history.com and the Huffington Post:

• The Irish have been celebrating the holiday, which honors the patron saint of Ireland, for 1,000 years.
• The first St. Patrick's Day parade was not held in Ireland, but in the U.S. in 1762. (This comes only as a mild surprise to me since so many Irish immigrated to the U.S.) According to history.com, Irish soldiers serving in the English army marched through the streets of New York in order to connect with their Irish roots.
• Chicago's famous dyeing of its river green allegedly came from Savannah, Georgia.
• Contrary to popular belief that Irish are raging drunks on St. Patrick's Day, Irish law mandated until the 1970s that all pubs be closed, because the holiday was celebrated as a religious one.
• 26.1 billion pounds of delicious corned beef and cabbage were consumed for St. Patrick's Day in 2009.

Also, you don't have to wear green. There is the option to wear orange, as well. Because St. Patrick's Day is a Catholic holiday (celebrating a saint) and Catholics are represented by green on the Irish flag, it's the more popular color. Orange represents the Protestant sect. However, Protestants don't celebrate saints days.

There is also a legend that if you wear green you will be invisible to leprechauns, who will pinch you if you don't. Now we know where the obnoxious people who go around looking for people to pinch come from.