No one really knows there or when the custom started and many of us don't care. Some people trace it to the Romans, whose pagan orgies were held during the spring season. The words "Mardi Gras" are French and mean "Fat Tuesday." Mardi Gras is one day. Carnival is a season of fun that starts on January 6th and ends on Mardi Gras Day.

The French in New Orleans were having private masked balls and parties in 1718. When the Spanish government took over, parties and street dancing were banned. It wasn't until 1827, when Americans were in power, that the right to party in a mask was restored. In 1857, six upscale Orleanians met and formed a secret society for blue bloods. They decided to call themselves Komos after the Greek god, someone suggested giving the name an English twist so the organization became the Mystik Krewe of Comus. The word krewe does not appear in any dictionary. This krewe added beauty to Mardi Gras and demonstrated that it could be a safe, festive event. Comus also started the customs of having a secret society, having a parade with a unifying theme with floats, and having a ball after the parade.

In 1870, the Twelfth Night Revelers had a nine-float parade on January 6th and made the twelfth day after Christmas the starting day of the Carnival season. In 1871, they began the custom of presenting a young woman with a golden bean hidden in a cake. This young woman was the first queen of Mardi Gras. This was also the origin of the king cake tradition.

The Krewe of Rex was formed partially because of a visit from the Russian Duke Alexis Romanoff. Rex was America's royalty for a day. Rex became the international symbol for Mardi Gras. Rex was the first daytime parade. The Krewe also adopted the Romanoff's house colors - purple (signifying justice), green (faith), and gold (power) as the official Mardi Gras colors. They also introduced its anthem "If Ever I Cease to Love." Part of Rex's first parade was "Old Jeff," the bull. The bull became Rex's boeuf gras, a symbol of the Lenten farewell to meat. This bull is still in the Rex parade but is now a float.

New Orleanians have since formed many secret societies that have served several charitable functions. The Krewe of Momus rolled for the first time in 1877. Proteus had its first parade in 1882. The Jefferson City Buzzards became the first marching club in 1894.

Mardi Gras can even poke fun at itself. The blacks of New Orleans mocked the snobbishness and exclusivity of Rex with their own parade. In 1909, William Storey wore an old tin lard can for a crown and a banana stalk as a scepter. William was crowned "King Zulu" that year, and was proceeded by "Provident Prince" and the "Big Shot of Africa." Donning black face and white eyes is another irresistible pun of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Zulu's parade would meander from barroom to barroom in junky cars and wagons instead of floats. If you wanted to catch the start of the parade, you had to find the bar that was extending hospitality to King Zulu. In 1949, Louis Armstrong was King of the Zulu parade and was pictured on the cover of Time magazine. Today, Zulu, with its beautiful modern floats, is one of the more popular parades of the season. They are known for their unique, hand-decorated coconut throws.

With the rise of mass produced automobiles, random truck riders became part of the Mardi Gras scene. In 1935, when Rex was cancelled because of rain, the trucks organized a group called the Krewe of Elks Orleanians. Today this krewe follows the Rex parade on Mardi Gras.

In 1950 the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited New Orleans during Mardi Gras. They honored the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition by bowing to kings of Rex and Comus at the Comus ball. The Fifties also saw the replacement of mule drawn floats with ones drawn by tractors.

In 1961 Pete Fountain founded the Half-Fast Walking Club. The group walks on Mardi Gras before Zulu. Finally, just as the decade began with the historic introduction of the Rex doubloon, so did the period end with another landmark event, the start of the Bacchus organization. The krewe's founders, feeling that the traditional Mardi Gras institutions had become static, wanted to attract national attention and make Carnival more accessible. In 1969, Bacchus shook the establishment by presenting the largest floats in Carnival history, by having a Hollywood celebrity ride as Bacchus (Danny Kaye), and by presenting, in place of the traditional ball, a supper dance to which tickets could be purchased by both visitors and locals. These revolutionary innovations proved immensely popular.

Carnival's growth continued throughout the Seventies. More than a dozen krewes followed the lead of Bacchus by placing celebrities in their parades. The Krewe of Endymion exploded onto the scene. Endymion, like Bacchus, is ruled by a god while others are ruled by kings. The Seventies brought a ban on parading through the French Quarter, ending a 117 year tradition.

The Eighties brought back Lundi Gras, the official arrival to the city on the Mississippi River on "Fat Monday," a tradition, which the krewe had enjoyed from 1874-1917. King Zulu also arrives this day.