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May 4 is Star Wars Day

May 4, 2025/0 Comments/in May

Today is Star Wars Day. Its date is a play on words referencing the line, “May the Force be with you.” “May the fourth be with you” has become a rallying cry for fans.

It was inaugurated on May 4, 2011, at the Toronto Underground Cinema in Canada and has quickly spread around the world. Festivities include costume and trivia contests, Internet tributes, mashups, and parodies.

Disney purchased Lucasfilm from its owner (and Star Wars creator) George Lucas in late 2012. Since May 4, 2013, the company has observed the holiday with events at Disney World and Disneyland. Today, Disney’s Star Wars homepage links to numerous purveyors of officially licensed merchandise, from Grogu rings [at presstime, its link is broken, but you can order them at Baublebar] to furniture. Yes, you can cosplay your entire bedroom . . . if you have enough credits, that is.

If you’ve missed today’s celebrations or want to extend them 24 hours, you’re in luck. There is another. A new Star Wars holiday has arisen, this one from the pun “revenge of the fifth.” (By the way, on May 4, 2015, on the International Space Station, astronauts watched Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. That got us thinking: Is there any distance great enough from which Hayden Christensen’s performance looks good?)

But wait, there’s more! In 2007, the Los Angeles City Council declared May 25th Star Wars Day to honor the 30th anniversary of the original movie’s release date. Diehard fans will take any excuse to celebrate. It puts us one day closer to the next installment.

Happy Star Wars Day(s), everybody!

April 5 is First Contact Day

April 6, 2022/1 Comment/in April, Holidays by Month

First Contact Day won’t officially happen until April 5, 2063, when Dr. Zefram Cochrane takes off from Earth in the first warp-capable vessel, Phoenix–constructed from remnants of a nuclear missile in an underground bunker outside Bozeman, Montana–attracting the attention of a passing Vulcan survey ship, spurring the Vulcans to make, you guessed it, first contact with humans. (In the mirror universe, the date is celebrated for a different reason. It’s named a holy day because when the Vulcans land to greet them, Cochrane grabs a shotgun and leads a group of Terrans to kill them all.)

We can be forgiven for celebrating early since the Star Trek universe has always played around with intersecting timelines. In the film Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg arrive from the 24th century on April 4, 2063, to try to sabotage Phoenix (even though Earth will provide them with some tasty space peeps to assimilate in the future). The 24th-century Enterprise also time-jumps to repair the craft, borking the Prime Directive to beat the Borg collective.

April 5, 2022–41 BFC–may have been the most exciting (Before) First Contact Day yet, when a trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was released.

The newest addition to the Star Trek canon stars the OG space captain, Christopher Pike, shown left on Star Trek: The Original Series–the moniker offends my Trekkie eye but I bow to the will of the people–as a burned dude in a rolling iron-lung/personal-sauna contraption. (They could tune the thing to his brainwaves yet could only construct it to give yes-or-no answers? Even a Magic 8-Ball can say “maybe.” Come on now.)

It was also announced on April 5, 2022, that Star Trek: Picard will shoot a third, final season and will bring back many characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation, including Riker, Geordi, Worf, Deanna Troi, Dr. Crusher, and Data.

If you’re reading this in 2063, Happy First First Contact Day! If you see some people with pointy ears, don’t shoot!

April 23 is Talk Like Shakespeare Day

April 23, 2019/0 Comments/in April, Holidays by Month

William Shakespeare: Bard, babe magnet

Did you miss Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day on January 24th? Do you need to recapture the fun you had on International Talk Like William Shatner Day on March 22nd? Rejoice! Today is Talk Like Shakespeare Day, begun in 2009 by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater to celebrate the Bard’s birthday.

Church records confirm that William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564. Since this was typically performed three days after birth, it’s believed he was born on April 23, 1564. He died on April 23, 1616, according to the Julian calendar in use at that time. Many sources report his birth in the Julian but his death in the Gregorian calendar, which would make it May 3, 1616.

In 2016, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel proclaimed this day Talk Like Shakespeare Day in honor of Shakespeare400, a yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. He prescribed a lot of thees and thous. But if we truly want to talk like Shakespeare, wouldn’t it be helpful to hear how a gentleman born in Stratford-upon-Avon would have spoken?

According to scholar John Barton, Shakespeare’s accent would sound to us like a blend of modern Irish, Yorkshire, and West Country English accents. Recordings compiled by National Public Radio feature pieces performed as Shakespeare probably heard them.

Here’s a recitation of one of his most popular sonnets: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment…”

If you’d rather celebrate the holiday without having to hire a dialect coach, just memorize a few of the greatest insults Shakespeare ever wrote. Here are nine of our favorites:

Thy food is such as hath been belch’d upon by infected lungs.
Pericles
Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it.
Troilus and Cressida
If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables.
Coriolanus
Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!
Henry IV, part I
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, start up and stand on end.
Hamlet
Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.
All’s Well That Ends Well
Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands.
All’s Well That Ends Well
Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.
Love’s Labour’s Lost

Want more? Use CNN’s Shakespeare Insult-o-Meter to choose the gender of your intended victim, select the severity of invective you desire and let the generator do the rest.

Happy Talk Like Shakespeare Day! And don’t forget to save some energy for International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th. Then cleanse your palate with National Gibberish Day on September 20th.

November 23 is TARDIS Day

November 23, 2018/0 Comments/in Holidays by Month, November

On November 23, 1963, the BBC aired the first episode of its new science fiction series about a mysterious man and his time machine. (Why did it look like a British police box? Because its chameleon circuit jammed after it landed in 1960s England, of course.)

No one could have predicted that Doctor Who would go on to be the longest-running science fiction television show in history. The original pilot was deemed unwatchable, scrapped and reshot, delaying the premiere by a week.

By the time the retooled episode, An Unearthly Child, made it to air on November 23, 1963, it was overshadowed by the assassination of President Kennedy, which had occurred the day before.

But Doctor Who eventually found an audience, especially after the introduction of the Daleks. More than half a century later, it is still popular with millions of loyal viewers. William Hartnell was the First Doctor to hop aboard the TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.

From the start, it was established that a Gallifreyan Time Lord can only regenerate twelve times. That would have made Peter Capaldi the last. Some fans insist the rule was nullified during Matt Smith’s tenure. Others maintain that John Hurt’s character was the forgotten regeneration between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston, which meant Capaldi was the Thirteenth Doctor.

The debate was settled by Chris Chibnall, the show’s new head writer, who announced, “After months of lists, conversations, auditions, recalls, and a lot of secret-keeping, we’re excited to welcome Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor.

“I always knew I wanted the Thirteenth Doctor to be a woman and we’re thrilled to have secured our number one choice.” The canon-busting series 11 began on October 7, 2018, and, while a few continued to cavil about the heresy of a female Doctor, fans voted with their eyeballs.

According to the UK Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB), which includes online viewership, 10.9 million people watched the premiere, the highest number for a season opener since the show’s return in 2005. BARB also reported that more girls than boys under 16 watched the debut: 378,000 vs 339,000. Last season’s first episode drew 143,000 girls and 339,000 boys. Brilliant.

We celebrate TARDIS Day because Doctor Who continues to entertain us with its steadily expanding universe, at once strange and strangely familiar. It’s also created a legion of Whovians, fans who seek each other out, bond over their love of the show and debate about who is the best Doctor, the worst villain, or even how many Doctors Who there have been.

Find some great ways to celebrate TARDIS Day here. Find the Doctor Who episode that fell on (or closest to) your birthday on Tardisday.com. Catch up on recent (2005-present) seasons on Amazon Prime. Watch the classics (1963-1989) when you sign up for BritBox. Fair warning: Even without the 97 lost episodes discarded by the BBC in the 1970s, there are more than 700 episodes, making it impossible to watch them all during a seven-day free trial period. Unless you’ve figured out that whole wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey situation, in which case, enjoy!

Happy TARDIS Day!

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