Easter the history includes not only the history of the Easter holiday and Easter season, but also the words and traditions that we use today in celebration of Easter.
Easter the history includes the etymology of the word Easter which goes back to the Greek Pascha, meaning Passover, the Hebrew holiday. Easter and Passover are similar in that both, from the religious standpoint, celebrate life. In Christianity Easter is a remembrance of the death and resurrection of Christ, while for Jews Passover recalls a time when Jewish first born children were spared while the first born of every Egyptian was killed to convince Pharaoh to free the Jews. It's also significant that Jesus and his apostles took the last supper as a Passover meal. English uses a different word for the holiday name, derived from Eostre in Old English, the name of a Germanic Month, although most romantic languages like Italian and Spanish still use a word similar to Pascha, such as the Spanish La Pascua.
Eastertide in Easter the history is the whole of the Easter season. At one time this was marked as 40 days from Easter until Ascension Day, the day Jesus rose into heaven, but now it lasts 50 days until Pentecost, when the apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is linked to the Jewish Shavout, which celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments 50 days after the beginning of the Exodus.
There were many disputes as to the time and specific date for Easter. The last of these was known as the Quartodeciman. The whole argument was whether to celebrate Easter on Nisan 14, a Hebrew calendar date, or the following Sunday. Passover Proper, held on Nisan 14, is the day people get ready for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In Phyrgia (also called the Roman Province of Asia) Easter was celebrated on this day, while everywhere else it was the following Sunday. That was because Nisan 14 could fall any day of the week, while most Christians wanted to celebrate Easter on a Sunday. The initial dispute didn't create a schism. But about 20 years later the Bishop of Rome excommunicated all the Bishops of Asia minor over the practice of celebrating on Nisan 14.
One other element had to do with when the Jews set the date for Nisan 14, and thus for Easter because the Christians had to rely on the Jewish date. Sometimes there were two Nisan 14's in the same year, because Jewish scholars set the date one year before the spring equinox after the last year it was after the spring equinox. The whole thing was cleared up with the First Nicaea Council who separated Easter from the Jewish calculations for Passover.
For more on Easter the History and the ways the date was calculated through time, visit Wikipedia.
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