Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
October 21 is Back to the Future Day
“We’re descending toward Hill Valley, California, at 4:29 pm, on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015.” Fire up the DeLorean and put the pedal to the metal. You’ll need 1.21 gigawatts of power at 88 miles per hour to get back to the future or, in this case, the past. Today is Back to the Future Day. In the second […]
October 20 is Information Overload Day
Today is Information Overload Day. Why? Here’s a hint. In April 2016, Statista published a study regarding media usage. In it, the company reported that U.S. adults spent an average of just over twelve hours per day consuming media on their televisions, mobile phones, tablets and computer screens, among other sources—sometimes simultaneously. In it, the statistics company […]
October 18 is World Menopause Day
For women dealing with menopause, every day is World Menopause Day. The International Menopause Society (IMS), creator of the holiday, attempts to make it fun by choosing a new theme each year. It’s a little like the prom: full of sweaty, uncomfortable seniors driven crazy by hormones. “What Comes to Mind: Menopause and the Aging […]
August 25 is Thoughtful Thursday
Today is Thoughtful Thursday, originated by Lorraine Jara in 1988 as part of Be Kind to Humankind Week. She created bk2hk.org after hearing about a boating accident near her hometown of Toms River, NJ. Two young men, drowning after their rowboat capsized, were pulled from the water by two young women in another small boat. They had no […]
August 15 is Taffy Sculpting Day
Today is Taffy Sculpting Day on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ. It is the first competition in the city’s annual Weird Week. According to organizers, today’s “wacky, but not tacky” contest challenges participants to build a work of art from saltwater taffy. One year, an entrant modeled a Ferris wheel from the candy. Tuesday […]
August 13 is TugFest
Today is the 30th annual TugFest. In 1987, residents of Port Byron, Illinois, and LeClaire, Iowa, decided it would be fun to have a tug-of-war. They didn’t let the fact that the towns are separated by the Mississippi River get in their way. The tradition continues today with 11 teams of 20 tuggers on either side of […]
National Flip Flop Day
National Flip Flop Day is a holiday invented by the U.S. national restaurant chain Tropical Smoothie Café. On the third Friday of June, from 2 pm to 7 pm local time, every customer wearing flip-flops will receive a free Jetty Punch Smoothie. From 2007 to 2020, Tropical Smoothie Café customers donated $ 7.5 million for Camp […]
May 28 is Julia Pierpont Day
Today is Julia Pierpont Day, named in honor of the woman who originated Decoration Day. In 1866, Julia Pierpont, wife of the Governor of Virginia, noticed that the graves of Civil War soldiers in Richmond’s cemeteries looked neglected. She started Decoration Day to show respect for those who had given their lives by tending to […]
International Virtual Assistants Day 2016
Today is 2016’s International Virtual Assistants Day (IVAD), which honors the support staff who will never hit on a coworker, pass gas in the conference room, or steal someone else’s yogurt from the company fridge. It takes place on the third Friday of May, during the Online International Virtual Assistants Convention (OIVAC). On OIVAC’s home page, […]
Barbed Wire Festival
May 5, 2016: The 50th Annual Barbed Wire Festival kicks off this evening in La Crosse, Kansas. The first convention for collectors of barbed wire was hosted there in 1967. According to the festival’s website, 2,000 people attended, earning La Crosse, described by Wikipedia as a “city” of 1,342, the title of “Barbed Wire Capital […]