Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
International Creepy Boston Dynamics Horse Day
Today is International Creepy Boston Dynamics Horse Day. On September 10, 2012, Boston Dynamics released footage of a rough-terrain robot it developed with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Marine Corps. The robot’s official name is The Legged Squad Support System (LS3). Its sensors allow it to follow a […]
Tester’s Day
Today is Tester’s Day. This unofficial holiday for technicians everywhere is not without controversy. The Story On September 9, 1945, Grace Hopper, a computer scientist at Harvard University, was running tests on the Mark II Calculator (designed by Howard Aiken) when she found a moth that had landed between two solenoid contacts, shorting out an electromechanical relay. Hopper […]
Pardon Day
Today is Pardon Day. On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford issued a controversial pardon to Richard Nixon, who had resigned on August 9, 1974 (a.k.a. National Veep Day). What follows is an excerpt. Read the full proclamation here. As a result of certain acts or omissions occurring before his resignation from the Office of President, […]
National Buy a Book Day
Today is National Buy a Book Day, created in 2010 by author Philip Athans to support bookstores, writers and the publishing industry. He chose September 7 as the date of its observance because it falls on his birthday. Athans described his inspiration in science fiction/fantasy blog Grasping at the Wind: It started with a tweet, which warned […]
International Bacon Day
Today is International Bacon Day, celebrated on the first Saturday of September since 2009. Although we can’t suss out who created this holiday for carnivores, we can provide you with helpful translations for the globetrotting bacon lover: English – Can I have some Bacon? Dutch – Kan ik wat Bacon hebben? French – Est-ce que […]
Fight Procrastination Day
Today is Fight Procrastination Day, created by an unknown person at an indeterminate point in human history. We’ve been unable to track down the source of this important, unofficial holiday. Procrastination is no joke, according to two of the world’s leading experts: Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, […]
Eat an Extra Dessert Day
Today is Eat an Extra Dessert Day, always celebrated on September 4th. We don’t know who started it or when, but we sincerely hope it will go on forever because, let’s face it, the only thing better than one dessert is two. We’re neither mathematicians nor philosophers, but we wonder: Is there such a thing […]
Chicken Boy Day
Today is Chicken Boy Day, celebrating the birthday of the fiberglass legend on September 1, 1969, or thereabouts. Official birth records are unavailable. Twenty-two feet tall, referred to by many as the Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles, California, Chicken Boy stood atop his namesake restaurant on Broadway between Fourth & Fifth Streets for fourteen […]
Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw
On the Friday and Saturday before Labor Day, a festival known as the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw takes place in Sauk City/Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin. An estimated 40,000 people attend each year. The current record for a throw is 248 feet, set by Greg Neumaier of Sauk Prairie in 1991. The women’s record is […]
National #2 Pencil Day
Today is National #2 Pencil Day. Though this holiday’s provenance is unclear, there’s no question that this classic writing instrument has made its mark on history. (Sorry, had to do it.) There’s no lead in a pencil; its core is made of graphite. According to Britannica, it was initially believed to be a type of […]