Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
Barcode Day
Today is Barcode Day. On June 26, 1974, at Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum became the first product bearing a barcode to be rung up by an electronic scanner. That historic moment had been a long time in the making. In 1952, American inventors Norman J. Woodland and Bernard Silver were […]
RIP World Championship Rotary Tiller Race
June 25, 2025: When we first wrote about the World Championship Rotary Tiller Race, we thought the tradition would last forever. Unfortunately, 2022 marked the 32nd and final PurpleHull Pea Festival and Rotary Tiller Race. That’s unfortunate because, as you can see from our write-up, it was a great reason to travel to Emerson, Arkansas. […]
RIP Giggin’ for Grads Night
June 24, 2025: We wrote about Giggin’ for Grads Night back in 2016. We’ve been unable to find any information since then about subsequent celebrations. We reached out to the DeKalb County Farmers Bureau to determine if the event has indeed been discontinued and if a new event has replaced it to fund scholarships for […]
Pink Flamingo Day
Today is Pink Flamingo Day, founded on June 23, 2007, by Mayor Dean Mazzarella of Leominster, Massachusetts, to honor the 50th birthday of the iconic lawn ornaments that have happily survived despite homeowners’ associations’ attempts to hunt them to extinction. In 1957, art school graduate Don Featherstone was tasked with creating a pink flamingo for his employer, […]
National Onion Ring Day
Today is National Onion Ring Day. The first known iteration of the onion ring appeared in the 1802 cookbook “The Art of Cookery.” The recipe for Fried Onions with Parmesan Cheese called for onions to be sliced into 1/2 inch rings, dredged in a batter of flour, cream, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese, then deep-fried […]
Polar Bear Swim
June 21, 2025, marks the 51st annual Polar Bear Swim, celebrated in Nome, Alaska, on the Saturday closest to the summer solstice (on June 21). Unlike many places in the USA’s lower 48 states (and Hawaii, of course), where taking a dip in the middle of June is a pleasure, splashing in the Bering Sea […]
American Eagle Day
Today is American Eagle Day. On June 20, 1782, the American eagle, also known as the bald eagle, was chosen to grace the Great Seal of the United States of America. Two centuries later, President Ronald Reagan declared June 20, 1982, National Bald Eagle Day and designated 1982 as the Bicentennial Year of the American Bald […]
World Sauntering Day
Today is World Sauntering Day, also known as International Sauntering Day. Initially conceived as a curative to the scourge of jogging, this holiday is perfect for our age of screens and short attention spans. The first official saunter reportedly took place at Michigan’s Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. Participants strolled across the 660-foot porch, which […]
June 16 is Ladies’ Day
Today is Ladies’ Day, originally devised to attract women to baseball games and convert them into fans. In actuality, it was designed to sell more tickets by getting men to bring their wives and, by extension, their children to games. (While women wouldn’t win the right to cast a ballot for nearly 40 years, we […]
June 15 is Magna Carta Day
Magna Carta Day, explained in the style of Jeff Spicoli: In 1215, the king of England was a total wad, so a bunch of rich baron dudes got together and decided his divine right was bogus, so they drew up some cool rules they called the Great Charter until somebody said it sounded way more […]