{"id":1664,"date":"2026-03-20T23:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T23:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/?p=1664"},"modified":"2026-03-21T00:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T00:02:08","slug":"the-spring-equinox-and-international-nowruz-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/2026\/03\/20\/the-spring-equinox-and-international-nowruz-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spring Equinox and International Nowruz Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On the day of Spring Equinox on Friday 20th March, many cultures across the Middle East and Central Asia are ready to celebrate the first day of spring (21st March) as their New Year &#8211; Nowruz (or its variations of spelling)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On this special occasion, Zahra, a QUB alumnus from School of Biological Sciences, shared with us her new year greetings and thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-1-1024x683.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-1-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-1-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-1-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-1-450x300.jpeg 450w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-1.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-2-683x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-2-683x1024.jpeg 683w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-2-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-2-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/03\/Intl-Nowruz-Day-Zahra-2026-2.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you, Zahra, happy Nowruz to you and to those who are celebrating at Queen&#8217;s!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To learn more about this festival, read <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/2025\/03\/21\/nawruz-mubarak\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Zahra&#8217;s post<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the day of Spring Equinox on Friday 20th March, many cultures across the Middle East and Central Asia are ready to celebrate the first day of spring (21st March) as their New Year &#8211; Nowruz (or its variations of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/2026\/03\/20\/the-spring-equinox-and-international-nowruz-day\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,20,22,119,112],"tags":[12,36,23,24,72,116,122],"class_list":["post-1664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-awareness","category-culture","category-festivals-and-celebrations","category-international-students","category-student-engagement","tag-cultural-awareness","tag-cultural-diversity","tag-diversity-inclusion","tag-festivals-and-celebrations","tag-lovequb","tag-nowruz","tag-persian-new-year"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1668,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664\/revisions\/1668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}