Every year, for four days in September, locals and tourists flock to one of Barcelona’s biggest events, La Mercè Festival. It got its beginnings in 1687 when Barcelona was suffering from a plague of locusts. In desperation, city officials voted to ask for the assistance of La Mare de Déu de la Mercè (the Virgin of Mercy). Eventually, having been delivered from the pestilence, the officials named the Virgin of Mercy the patroness of Barcelona, and an annual festival has been celebrated in her honor in the city ever since.
Barcelona bids farewell to summer
Today in History
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Darwin Day
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Hanging out on a limb
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Feeling chic on Fashion Week
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National Park Week: Guadalupe Mountains National Park
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Joshua Tree National Park
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‘The memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever’
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Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park
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Earth seen from the International Space Station
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Crested caracaras
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Happy Thanksgiving from an expert face-stuffer
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The birth of Bauhaus
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The power of the forest
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Spring equinox
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The Hermitage of Santa Justa
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Rolling hills of the Palouse, Washington
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Hut, hut, hike!
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A memorial in Germany
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Frozen beauty
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Summer winds down in the Southern Hemisphere
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Preservation Hall in New Orleans, Louisiana
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Carnival of Venice
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Snow buntings take flight
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Gray days ahead in Monterey
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Skyscraper Day
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Mod gear
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World Water Day
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Row, row, row your gondola
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Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York
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Going with the floe
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Here s looking at you
Bing Wallpaper Gallery

