On this day in 1827, a group of masked and costumed students dance through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, marking the beginning of the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

The celebration of Carnival–or the weeks between Twelfth Night on January 6 and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian period of Lent–spread from Rome across Europe and later to the Americas. Nowhere in the United States is Carnival celebrated as grandly as in New Orleans, famous for its over-the-top parades and parties for Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday), the last day of the Carnival season.

Though early French settlers brought the tradition of Mardi Gras to Louisiana at the end of the 17th century, Spanish governors of the province later banned the celebrations. After Louisiana became part of the United States in 1803, New Orleanians managed to convince the city council to lift the ban on wearing masks and partying in the streets. The city’s new Mardi Gras tradition began in 1827 when the group of students, inspired by their experiences studying in Paris, donned masks and jester costumes and staged their own Fat Tuesday festivities.

The parties grew more and more popular, and in 1833 a rich plantation owner named Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville raised money to fund an official Mardi Gras celebration. After rowdy revelers began to get violent during the 1850s, a secret society called the Mistick Krewe of Comus staged the first large-scale, well-organized Mardi Gras parade in 1857.

Over time, hundreds of krewes formed, building elaborate and colorful floats for parades held over the two weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday. Riders on the floats are usually local citizens who toss “throws” at passersby, including metal coins, stuffed toys or those now-infamous strands of beads. Though many tourists mistakenly believe Bourbon Street and the historic French Quarter are the heart of Mardi Gras festivities, none of the major parades have been allowed to enter the area since 1979 because of its narrow streets.

In February 2006, New Orleans held its Mardi Gras celebrations despite the fact that Hurricane Katrina had devastated much of the city with massive flooding the previous August. Attendance was at only 60-70 percent of the 300,000-400,000 visitors who usually attend Mardi Gras, but the celebration marked an important step in the recovery of the city, which counts on hospitality and tourism as its single largest industry.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-02-27

Sheldon Fox: The story is about murders world-wide, and it says that Crescent City cracks the top three. The New Orleans sky high murder rate and violent crime is nothing new, but did you know the city is now part of a new short list according to a global website. The International Business Times named New Orleans the third most murderous city in the world. Caracas, Venezuela and Cape Town, South Africa sit atop the list which measures rates by the number of murders per 100,000 people. When stories like this emerge for the outside world there’s only one way to measure the mood of those plugging the city- it’s bad. Community activist and Reverend Patrick King works with at-risk kids in Central City, and says taking down the number of killings here will start when education improves. He does see progress here, and he reminded us that it’s been a while since we covered a murder on his block. But elsewhere? New Orleans cops today identified the woman who was last seen alive here at The Howl & Wolf last Saturday morning. She was later found dead in the ninth ward with a gunshot wound to the body. Kirsten Brydum was a 25 year old who came to New Orleans last week from San Francisco. Cops also say she was shot several times in the head. It’s the city’s 145th killing and Reverend King has a world of ideas on how to stop the bleeding.

Reverend King: If you don’t invest in human development, housing, economic, political investments or development will not bring us the results we’re looking for. Instead of spending $700 billion in bailing out Wall Street what would happen if we just invested $100 billion in educating the crack babies?

5 Tulane students arrested in hazing incident

by Walt Philbin, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday May 06, 2008, 6:35 PM

Five members of a Tulane University fraternity were arrested Tuesday and five others are being sought on felony battery charges in an alleged hazing incident in which two pledges received second- and third-degree burns from boiling water and crab-boil being poured on their bodies, police and other sources familiar with the investigation said.

Jeremy Bendat
Joseph Lorono
Kevin Dunn
Nicholas Maddern
Randall Graham
New Orleans police said the victims were treated at a local hospital and released after the April 25-26 incident.The victims and suspects were all students at the university, officials said.
Tulane suspended its chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and will begin its own investigation, the university said in a press release issued Tuesday. Tulane would not say whether any disciplinary action was taken against the student suspects.

“This fraternity is no longer a recognized fraternity at Tulane,” the release said, adding that the university has “zero tolerance for any type of hazing or other incident which can potentially endanger the well-being of any student.”

Five of the fraternity members turned themselves in to New Orleans and Tulane police at campus police headquarters late Tuesday afternoon, police said. They were booked with aggravated second-degree battery, a felony, police spokesman Officer Garry Flot said.
NOPD and university police were making arrangements by phone Tuesday night for at least three of the five wanted students to turn themselves in as well, police said.

New Orleans police and Tulane officials provided few details about the hazing allegations.
The injuries apparently occurred sometime during an hours-long hazing either at or near the fraternity house on Broadway, late night April 25 or the pre-dawn hours April 26, sources familiar with the investigation said. At some point during the hazing, crab-boil and other things were poured on the pledges’ bodies and boiling water poured over that, tearing their skin in places, according to the sources.

Between them, the two victims had “second- and third-degree burns” to various parts of the body that included the back, chest, neck and arms,” the sources said.
Both victims sought treatment at Touro Hospital sometime that morning, the sources said. It is unclear whether fraternity members, the pledges themselves or others took the two victims to the hospital.

Attempts to reach Pi Kappa Alpha officials Tuesday night were unsuccessful.
Tulane police began an investigation when the father of one of the victims got word of the injury after asking someone to check up on his son Saturday or Sunday morning, the sources said.
Booked were Joseph Lorono, 20 of New York; Randall Graham, 20, of Michigan; Nicholas Maddern, 22, of Massachusetts; Kevin Dunn, 20, of New York; and Jeremy Bendat, 22, of California.
Wanted suspects include Danny Lazzeri, 20; Joseph Stevens, 23; William Dougherty, 20; Oded Nissim, 20; Preston Gelman, 20.
Aggravated second-degree battery carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine.

Walt Philbin can be reached at wphilbin@timespicayune.com or at 504826-3302.