A member of Viradouro samba school performs during the first night of Rio's Carnival parade at the Sambadrome Marques de Sapucai in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on April 22, 2022. (Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP Photo)

Revellers celebrate “Ash Monday” by participating in a colourful “flour war”, a traditional festivity marking the end of the carnival season and the start of the 40-day Lent period until the Orthodox Easter,in the port town of Galaxidi, Greece, February 27, 2017. (Photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

A reveller participates in a parade during a carnival to mark the annual Orthodox St. Vasilij Day, the beginning of the Orthodox New Year, in the village of Vevcani, North Macedonia, in this still image taken from a picture, on January 13, 2025. (Photo by Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)

Revellers get into the spirit of the 40th annual Zomercarnaval – summer carnival – in Rotterdam on July 28, 2024. The two-day event is such in integral part of Netherlands tradition it was added to Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list last year. (Phoot by James Petermeier/ZUMA Press Wire)

“The Labor Day Parade (or West Indian Carnival), is an annual celebration held on American Labor Day (the first Monday in September), in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Jessie Waddell and some of her West Indian friends started the Carnival in Harlem in the 1920s by staging costume parties in large enclosed places like the Savoy, Renaissance and Audubon Ballrooms due to the cold wintry weather of February. This is the usual time for the pre-Lenten celebrations held in most countries around the world. However, because of the very nature of Carnival, and the need to parade in costume to music, indoor confinement did not work well. The earliest known Carnival street parade was held on September 1, 1947. The Trinidad Carnival Pageant Committee was the founding force behind the parade, which was held in Harlem. The parade route was along Seventh Avenue, starting at 110th St.” – Wikipedia

Photo: A reveler looks on during the West Indian-American Day Parade September 5, 2011 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. More than 2 million spectators were expected to attend the celebration of Caribbean culture. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A masquerader from the Paramin Blue Devils parades before judges during the traditional mas competition held by the National Carnival Commission at Victoria Square, in the capital Port-of-Spain, February 12, 2015. (Photo by Andrea De Silva/Reuters)

Parade participants during the traditional “Masopust Carnival” festival on February 13, 2018 in Roztoky near Prague, Czech Republic. Known as Masopust (literally, “giving up meat”), the festival was traditionally the last chance to eat and drink in excess before the austerity of Lent. (Photo by Margot Buff/RFE/RL)

Revellers celebrate “Ash Monday” by participating in a colourful “flour war”, a traditional festivity marking the end of the carnival season and the start of the 40-day Lent period until the Orthodox Easter, in Galaxidi, Greece February 19, 2018. (Photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)