Hannukah, or as Adam Sandler would like to call it, the Eight Crazy Nights is a celebration of two miracles. One being a triumph of a small army of Jews known as the "Maccabees" against a much larger Greek army, hoping to impose a Hellenistic lifestyle on them around 2nd century BCE. The second miracle, closely related to the first is that after this very same victory, it turned out that much to their dissapointment, the Maccabees had only enough pure olive oil to light their "Menorah" (candelbra) for one night to celebrate their conquest, yet somehow the Menorah burned for eight days and nights. Here are a few other things that not everyone might know about Hanukkah.
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Hanukkah is really spelt "Chanukah". It just so happens that the "ch" is not pronounced as it is in "cheese" or "chowder" but rather as a guttural throaty sound not unlike the pronounciation of "Bach" in Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Foods fried in oil are typically the cuisine of choice during Hanukkah. This is due to the role that oil played in the origins of this celebration.
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The name "Maccabee" came from the Hebrew work for hammer or for hitting.
Click here to read more about the celebration.