Lift a stein (or just a glass, if that's all you have), because today marks 204 years of Oktoberfest. The first Munich festival was held on October 12, 1810, to mark a Bavarian royal marriage whose details you don't need to know much about. The original festival included horse races, and was enough of a hit to be repeated the next fall. The recurring festival didn't become the suds-soaked event we think of today until at least 1892, when beer began being served in glass mugs.

For more than two centuries, Munich has celebrated Oktoberfest more or less annually, although the occasional cholera outbreak or war has caused several cancellations. The event celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1910 with around 120,000 liters of beer. If hops and barley aren't your thing, feel free to sample all the sausage, potato cakes, sauerkraut, and other Munich delicacies you can handle. Oktoberfest also hosts rides, carnival booths, an agricultural show…but no horse races. Those ended in 1960.

The actual dates of Oktoberfest have moved around a bit. Today, the event is traditionally celebrated for 16 days beginning in late September (to take advantage of some of Munich's last warm days of the year) and running through the first weekend of October. I say "traditionally" 16 days because October 3 is German Unity Day, marking the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, so if the holiday happens to fall on a Monday or Tuesday, they just extend Oktoberfest an extra day or two. Two world wars aside, the Germans know what they're doing when it comes to this thing. And if a trip to Munich isn't in the cards for you, just enjoy one of the many honorary Oktoberfests that have sprung up in other places (often founded by German immigrants) over the years. So is all this enough to forgive that unfortunate business in the 20th century? I'm not sure, Germany. We might need another round first.

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