英语课程计划-National High Five Day（在线收听）

National High Five Day is on the third Thursday of April every year. This unusual holiday started at the University of Virginia in the USA in 2002. Since then, it has slowly grown in popularity around America. It is also spreading to different countries around the world. The day celebrates one of America’s invented gestures of the twentieth century. It is a common part of life in America today and around the world when people have something they want to jointly celebrate. You most often see it in sport, when two teammates will raise their arms and give each other’s hands a slap. Television has spread the gesture everywhere and you can see it wherever you go in the world. Both men and women use it to celebrate.

The High Five website speculates that the gesture started with an American basketball player called Mont Skeets, one of the greatest players ever to play for Murray State University. Legend has it that when Mont was three years old, his father’s army friends would visit. They were all from the 5th infantry division. The young Mont didn’t know their names so would greet them by saying “Hi, Five”. The former soldiers replied by slapping Mont’s up-stretched arm. When Mont grew up and started playing basketball, he adapted his greeting to use it with his teammates when they got points. The “Hi, Five” became a “high five” and the celebration became contagious. In a short space of time it had spread throughout the basketball world.