In countries such as the United Kingdom, Mardi Gras is more usually known as Pancake Day or (traditionally) Shrove Tuesday, derived from the word shrive, meaning "to administer the sacrament of confession to; to absolve".

[5] During the liturgical season of Lent, some Christians abstain from the consumption of certain foods such as meat, eggs, dairy products, and alcoholic beverages.

[18][19][4] The last day of Shrovetide, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), is named as such "because people felt bloated having eaten up all the rich foods before Lent" in order to prepare for the coming season of repentance.

[25] In the Czech Republic, it is a folk tradition to celebrate Mardi Gras, which is called Masopust (meat-fast, i.e. beginning of the fast there).

There are celebrations in many places including Prague,[26] but the tradition also prevails in villages such as Staré Hamry, whose door-to-door processions made it to the UNESCO World Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

[30] While not observed nationally throughout the United States, a number of historically ethnically French cities and regions in the country have notable celebrations.

[31] The expedition, led by Iberville, entered the mouth of the Mississippi River on the evening of 2 March 1699 (new style), Lundi Gras.

The party proceeded upstream to a place on the east bank about 60 miles (100 km) downriver from where New Orleans is today, and made camp.

[citation needed] Galveston's first recorded Mardi Gras celebration, in 1867, included a masked ball at Turner Hall (Sealy at 21st St.) and a theatrical performance from Shakespeare's "King Henry IV" featuring Alvan Reed (a justice of the peace weighing in at 350 pounds) as Falstaff.

Boasting such themes as "The Crusades", "Peter the Great", and "Ancient France", the procession through downtown Galveston culminated at Turner Hall with a presentation of tableaux and a grand gala.

[37] St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1764 by French fur traders, claims to host the second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the United States.

[41] Mardi Gras, as a celebration of life before the more-somber occasion of Ash Wednesday, nearly always involves the use of masks and costumes by its participants, and the most popular celebratory colors are purple, green, and gold.

In New Orleans, for example, these often take the shape of fairies, animals, people from myths, or various Medieval costumes[42] as well as clowns and Indians (Native Americans).

Unlike Halloween costumery, Mardi Gras costumes are not usually associated with such things as zombies, mummies, bats, blood, and the like, though death may be a theme in some.

[44] Although the Church teaches that it is sinful and that it contravenes the Christian standards of modesty,[45][46] the practice of some women exposing their breasts during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, US, has been documented since 1889, when the Times-Democrat decried the "degree of immodesty exhibited by nearly all female masqueraders seen on the streets."

[citation needed] In the last decades of the 20th century, the rise in producing commercial videotapes catering to voyeurs helped encourage a tradition of women baring their breasts in exchange for beads and trinkets.

Social scientists studying "ritual disrobement" found, at Mardi Gras 1991, 1,200 instances of body-baring in exchange for beads or other favors.