Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
July 8 is the Soapy Smith Wake
Today is the 43rd annual Soapy Smith Wake. Since 1974, descendants of con man Jefferson “Soapy” Smith have held an annual wake for him on the anniversary of his murder in Skagway, Alaska, on July 8, 1898. Jefferson Smith lived to prove the axiom, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” He gained his […]
Nettie Stevens Day
Nettie Stevens Day celebrates the scientist who discovered XX and XY chromosomes determine sex. But few know of her contributions because the credit went to a man — who got it wrong. Nettie Stevens studied mealworms and found that a male’s sperm carried both X and Y chromosomes, while a female’s eggs contained only X […]
July 6 is Umbrella Cover Day
Today is Umbrella Cover Day. Although the holiday got its start in 2014, its roots reach back to 1996, when Maine native Nancy 3. Hoffman founded the Umbrella Cover Museum, with the motto “Celebrate the Mundane,” dedicating it to “finding wonder and beauty in the simplest of things.” Hoffman changed her middle name from Arlene […]
Ducktona 500
Today marks the 36th annual Ducktona 500 in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, which is always held on the first Sunday in July. Hundreds of numbered rubber duckies will be dumped into the Sheboygan River and race downstream to win $1,000 for the lucky holder of the corresponding raffle ticket. For 26 of those years, the races were illegal. In 2013, […]
Bikini Day
Today is Bikini Day. On July 5, 1946, French designer Louis Réard unveiled a two-piece swimsuit he named after a US atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, conducted only five days earlier. He believed his swimsuit would cause an “explosive commercial and cultural reaction.” Two-piece outfits were not new. In 1960, […]
International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship
July 5, 2025, is the 52nd Annual International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship, held each year in Eau Claire, MI, on the first Saturday of July. It has been billed as a “Spit-tacular Day” where you can “spit your pit in public with only a minimal loss of dignity while gaining fame.” It’s the only cherry pit […]
Rube Goldberg Day
Today is Rube Goldberg Day. On July 4, 1883, Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg was born in San Francisco, CA. In his 87 years on the planet, he was a cartoonist, engineer, inventor, author, sculptor, and scriptwriter. He is best known for his cartoons depicting absurdly complex contraptions used to perform simple tasks. One such […]
July 3 is Disobedience Day
Today is Disobedience Day. We don’t know who invented the holiday, but we can surmise why it falls on July 3rd each year. Without disobedience, there could be no independence.
International Joke Day
Today is International Joke Day. In 2001, Richard Wiseman enlisted the aid of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), founded in 1831 and now known as the British Science Association (BSA), in conducting a yearlong study designed to discover the world’s funniest joke and learn about the psychology of humor. They created the […]
Time Capsule: Social Media Day 2016
June 30, 2025: Although this holiday still exists, we have decided to preserve this post as is to show how many things have changed in nine years and how some (we’re looking at you, Kanye) have remained the same. June 30, 2016: Today is Social Media Day, created in 2010 by Mashable “to recognize and […]