Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
D.B. Cooper Day
On November 24, 1971, a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper boarded a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. He was wearing a suit, had no discernible accent, drank bourbon and soda, and smoked several cigarettes. He also handed a flight attendant an exceedingly polite note informing her he had a […]
Start Your Own Country Day
Today is Start Your Own Country Day. According to legend, it was introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City to honor “those free-spirited souls who dared to hope and believe in a better world where they too could declare any land their own.” We’ve been unable to confirm that account. No matter […]
World Hello Day
November 21st is World Hello Day, also known as Greet Ten People for Peace. It was founded in 1973 by brothers Brian and Michael McCormack, university students at the time, in response to the Yom Kippur War. “We wanted to do something to celebrate the importance of personal communication to preserving peace,” Michael McCormack later explained. They wrote to world […]
Pushbutton Phone Day
On November 18, 1963, the first pushbutton telephone went on sale to the public. It may seem quaint now in the age of mobile phones, when many of us don’t even have landlines anymore. But this was cutting-edge technology in its day and remains an integral part of telecommunications history. Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, working […]
George Spelvin Day
Today is George Spelvin Day. Who is he, and why does he have his own day? He was “born” on November 15, 1886, and is still going strong. How is that possible? George Spelvin began as a pseudonym used in theatrical playbills to hide the fact that a performer was “doubling“—playing two roles in a play […]
National American Teddy Bear Day
National American Teddy Bear Day celebrates the cuddly stuffed animal with a remarkable history that includes a US president and a preacher spouting conspiracy theories. Today’s date coincides with a hunting trip taken in November 1902. The governor of Mississippi invited Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, to a bear hunt, but […]
Sadie Hawkins Day
Today is Sadie Hawkins Day, an American rite of passage for generations of teenagers. Misogynistic, antiquated, and awkward for all involved, it supposedly empowers girls to switch gender roles and ask out the boys. Did we mention it’s misogynistic and antiquated? Its true origin is much, much worse. Sadie Hawkins was a character created in […]
Air Day
Take a deep breath. Air keeps us alive. With the notable exception of anaerobic bacteria, living things need oxygen to survive. Not pure oxygen, mind you. That would be too much of a good thing. Air (usually) has just the right mix of gases and, for that, we owe it a debt of gratitude. If […]
International Accounting Day
What’s so exciting about International Accounting Day? On November 10, 1494, Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli published “Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita” (Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion). It included a detailed description of double-entry bookkeeping, called the Method of Venice. Although this technique had been practiced for centuries, Pacioli’s treatise was the […]
Chaos Never Dies Day
Today is Chaos Never Dies Day. At least, I think it is. When I first wrote about this unofficial holiday a decade ago, I had no idea I’d get tangled up in that chaos thanks to the Internet and a Florida man’s radio talk show. (More on that later.) Why this holiday? Since no one has […]