Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
August 27 is National Petroleum Day
Today is National Petroleum Day, also known as Oil and Gas Industry Appreciation Day. Crude oil was first pumped from the ground in China’s Sichuan Province 2,500 years ago. Its discovery in the U.S. is credited to Edwin L. Drake who, on August 27, 1859, struck oil 70 feet below the surface of Titusville, PA. The […]
August 26 is Women’s Equality Day
Today is Women’s Equality Day, created in 1972 to commemorate the date in 1920 when, after decades of effort by activists across the country, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote. Fifty years later, on August 26, 1970, feminist Betty Friedan led a nationwide protest called the Women’s Strike […]
August 24 is Pluto Demoted Day
Today is Pluto Demoted Day. On August 24, 2006, at a meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, 424 members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to enact new rules governing the classification of planets. The IAU narrowed the definition of a planet after the discovery of several worlds at the edge of our solar system. Pluto […]
August 18 is Mail Order Catalog Day
Today is Mail Order Catalog Day. On August 18, 1872, Aaron Montgomery Ward issued the first mail order catalog of Montgomery Ward & Company of Chicago, Illinois. It was a one-sheet list of 163 items. Several years earlier, while working as a traveling salesman, Ward learned that customers in rural areas lacked access to quality […]
August 17 is Black Cat Appreciation Day
Today is Black Cat Appreciation Day. Although we’ve been unable to track down the origin of this holiday, we’ve found that the ASPCA celebrates the occasion each year by discounting its adoption fees for black cats and kittens, which it states are less likely to be adopted because of superstition. Black Cats weren’t always considered […]
August 16 is International Wave at Surveillance Day
Today is International Wave at Surveillance Day, created in 2001 by privacy activist Zorbitor to provide “a chance for the watched to reach out to the watchers both at home and in public venues.” First, a little history is in order. Video Surveillance In 1942, the surveillance camera was invented by German engineer Walter Bruch and […]
August 14 is Navajo Code Talkers Day
Today is Navajo Code Talkers Day, a holiday that honors the distinguished record of soldiers who transmitted military messages in the Navajo language during World War II. The Axis powers were unable to break the code, which helped safeguard U.S. military communications and may have hastened the end of the war. In May of 1942, 29 Navajo recruits graduated […]
July 9 is Rock ‘n’ Roll Day
Today is Rock ‘n’ Roll Day. It marks an end as well as a beginning. On July 9, 1956, Dick Clark took over as the host of a show called Bandstand. Less than three weeks before, it had slipped through another man’s hands. Bandstand premiered in 1950 on WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, PA, and consisted of […]
June 21 is Go Skateboarding Day
Today is Go Skateboarding Day, created in 2004 by the International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC). We’d like to let the founders describe their motives. According to the IASC site, “The holiday began June 21, 2004, as an excuse for skateboarders to make skateboarding their top priority.” It goes on to describe the day in a way […]
May 25 is Towel Day
Today is Towel Day, created to honor Douglas Adams, author of the beloved Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, after he passed away on May 11, 2001, at the age of 49. It took fans two weeks to organize a worldwide tribute to Adams. May 25th has remained Towel Day ever since. Why is it called […]