fun, strange holidays grouped by month

US Coast Guard Day

/0 Comments/in ,

Today is U.S. Coast Guard Day.

After the Continental Navy disbanded in 1785, no provision existed in the U.S. Constitution for the establishment of a permanent maritime force.

In 1790, Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury, founded the service that would become the Coast Guard.

Established to enforce tariff laws and manned by crews of civilians, the fleet became known as the system of cutters, named for the type of vessel used: armed ships, usually single-masted, that measured at least 65 feet in length.

From 1798 through 1800, the U.S. and France fought an undeclared naval war known as the “Quasi-War,” precipitated in part by the U.S. reneging on the repayment of loans received from France during the American Revolutionary War.

Congress passed legislation authorizing President John Adams to reestablish the U.S. Navy and conscript revenue cutters from the Treasury Department during the conflict.

In September of 1800, Adams and Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, signed a treaty ending hostilities between the two countries.

The Revenue Cutter Service and the United States Life-Saving Service, created in 1848 to save shipwrecked sailors, merged in 1915 to become the U.S. Coast Guard.

Happy U.S. Coast Guard Day!

Share this:

National Watermelon Day

/0 Comments/in

2025 Watermelon Queen Elanie Mason

Today is National Watermelon Day. It closely follows July’s Watermelon Month, established in 2008 by a unanimous U.S. Congressional Joint Resolution.

Today’s holiday is sponsored by the National Watermelon Promotion Board (NWPB), an organization whose strategic mission is to increase consumer demand in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico while working to develop trade with England and Japan.

NWPB raises funds by charging nine cents per hundredweight of watermelons intended for human consumption. The fee is split between producers and handlers and paid in total by importers.

Its Board of Directors decides how best to spend those fees to secure high-value print, television, and radio publicity. It is dedicated to expanding watermelon’s summertime appeal to make it an everyday, year-round choice for consumers.

Another group supporting today’s holiday is the National Watermelon Association (NWA), which welcomes all who work in the industry to join one of nine regional chapters. Its website has information on everything from creating attractive in-store displays to factoring climate change into crop planning.

Since 1964, NWA has crowned a National Watermelon Queen. The 2025 Queen is Elanie Mason. Here’s a description of her duties.

She embarks on a nationwide tour throughout her reign, blending media expertise with industry knowledge to champion watermelon consumption. From engaging supermarket shoppers to influencing policymakers, she tirelessly advocates for the prosperity of the watermelon industry.

This holiday has made us appreciate watermelon as more than just something we buy when we’re feeling nostalgic. We lug it home, resent it for taking up half the fridge, never cut into it because it seems like too much work, and finally throw it out, vowing never to buy one again. But the siren song of the watermelon is strong. In fact, there’s one in my fridge right now. Maybe this time will be different!

Happy National Watermelon Day!

Share this:

National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

/0 Comments/in
national ice cream sandwich day

Jersey Shore circa 1905

Today is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day.

According to Geraldine Quinzio, author of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making, the ice cream sandwich was invented in 1899 by a pushcart peddler in New York City. It consisted of vanilla ice cream pressed between two thin graham crackers.

In July of 1900, The New York Tribune reported that the vendor was so busy making the sandwiches that he didn’t have time to make change and required all customers to pay exactly one penny.

The photograph you see here was taken at the New Jersey shore in 1905  and shows a popular pushcart on the beach. Supposedly, the modern iteration of the sandwich using rectangular chocolate cookies was created in 1945 by Jerry Newberg, who sold them at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, PA.

Here are a few of the “fun facts” quoted everywhere from blogs to news outlets today:

  • It’s estimated that 48 ice cream sandwiches are consumed per second in the United States.
  • If all the ice cream sandwiches made during the year were placed end to end, they would circle the globe 3 1/2 times.
  • Almost 50 percent of all ice cream sandwiches are consumed by residents of states on the Eastern seaboard.

We don’t know this trivia’s original source, but we’ve tracked it back to a newspaper article dated December 21, 1995. We hope someone will freshen up those stale statistics. Inquiring minds want to know how many times ice cream sandwiches would wrap around the planet now.

Other versions of the ice cream sandwich have been created all over the world, many predating the American kind. We’ll leave that debate to the food historians.

Happy National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!

Share this:

World Middle Finger Day

/1 Comment/in

Today is World Middle Finger Day, created in 2012 by Charles Greene to encourage everyone to exercise their right to peaceful protest with a universal gesture of defiance.

Greene chose August 1st because it falls between July 4th and September 11, two dates that inspire nationalistic fervor. World Middle Finger Day acknowledges the value of dissent.

World Middle Finger Day has an official anthem. The music video stars adorable puppets, but be warned: it isn’t family-friendly. Your child’s preschool teacher will never believe he learned that rude gesture from a puppet.

Here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Don’t just stand there blubberin’, feeling sad and blue.
C’mon, pull yourself together, ’cause there’s something you can do:

Give them the finger, give them the finger, the middle one on either of your fists.
Give them the finger, give them the finger, and do it with a flippin’ of the wrist.

Though you’ll never be forgiven, it’s the finger that you’re giving ’em,
But life’s worth living after all—

Give them the finger, give them the finger:
Feeling good, feeling better, walking tall!

Happy World Middle Finger Day!

Share this: