Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
Happiness Happens Day
Today is Happiness Happens Day. Spiritual seeker and motivational speaker Pamela Gail Johnson founded the Secret Society of Happy People in 1998. The following year, she created Admit You’re Happy Day, the holiday which evolved into Happiness Happens Day. In 2000, she declared August Happiness Happens Month. Per Johnson, even though she is blessed with “happy […]
Purple Heart Day
Today is Purple Heart Day. On August 7, 1782, at his headquarters in Newburgh, NY, General George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, ordered the creation of a Badge of Military Merit. The badge consisted of a purple, heart-shaped piece of cloth with the word MERIT embroidered in silver across the front. It was […]
Corporate Baby Name Day
Today is Corporate Baby Name Day. On August 6, 2001, AmericanBaby.com, a (now defunct) online resource for pregnancy and parenting advice, announced the results of a survey it had recently conducted. The poll asked six hundred respondents if they would sell the right to name their baby to a corporation for $500,000. We’ve learned about […]
Curiosity Day
Today is Curiosity Day. On August 5, 2012, NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity landed on the red planet after a procedure so complicated its engineers dubbed it Seven Minutes of Terror. On November 26, 2011, an unmanned spacecraft carrying the 1,982-pound SUV-sized rover launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After traveling 354 million […]
US Coast Guard Day
Today is U.S. Coast Guard Day. After the Continental Navy disbanded in 1785, no provision existed in the U.S. Constitution for the establishment of a permanent maritime force. In 1790, Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury, founded the service that would become the Coast Guard. Established to enforce tariff laws and manned […]
National Watermelon Day
Today is National Watermelon Day. It closely follows July’s Watermelon Month, established in 2008 by a unanimous U.S. Congressional Joint Resolution. Today’s holiday is sponsored by the National Watermelon Promotion Board (NWPB), an organization whose strategic mission is to increase consumer demand in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico while working to develop trade with England and […]
National Ice Cream Sandwich Day
Today is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. According to Geraldine Quinzio, author of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making, the ice cream sandwich was invented in 1899 by a pushcart peddler in New York City. It consisted of vanilla ice cream pressed between two thin graham crackers. In July of 1900, The New York […]
World Middle Finger Day
Today is World Middle Finger Day, created in 2012 by Charles Greene to encourage everyone to exercise their right to peaceful protest with a universal gesture of defiance. Greene chose August 1st because it falls between July 4th and September 11, two dates that inspire nationalistic fervor. World Middle Finger Day acknowledges the value of dissent. […]
National Intern Day
National Intern Day, observed on the last Thursday in July, recognizes the hard work and dedication of interns across the country. It was created in 2017 by WayUp, a unique platform that connects college students and recent grads with job opportunities and career advice. The task of getting an internship has always been a difficult one, […]
Moby-Dick Marathon
The 24-hour Moby-Dick Marathon begins at noon today at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT. An actor portraying Herman Melville will recite the novel’s first chapter aboard the Seaport’s 1841 wooden whaler. Visitors can sign up to read a chapter aloud. Hopefully, the reading will progress at a pace that will bring it to a conclusion at […]