may Archives - Page 4 of 8 - Worldwide Weird Holidays

May 18 is I Love Reese’s Day

May 18, 2017/0 Comments/in May

Today is I Love Reese’s Day, a celebration of the marriage of chocolate and peanut butter and the visionary who got them together in the first place.

This mascot is creepy, no?

In 1917, Harry Burnett Reese (May 24, 1879 – May 16, 1956) took a job on a dairy farm owned by the Hershey Company and later worked in the candy factory itself.

Inspired, he began to experiment with different candy formulas in his basement, with the intention of making extra money to care for his growing family.

He created the H. B. Reese Candy Company in 1923, selling a large variety of confections. He was so successful that three years later he was able to build a factory as well as a new home.

By 1928, Reese and his wife Blanche had sixteen children. That same year, H. B. Reese invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, sometimes called penny cups because they cost one cent apiece. They quickly became his most popular treat.

In response to sugar rationing during World War II, Reese chose to discontinue production of everything but the peanut butter cups, which required less sugar than his other candies. It was a savvy move that guaranteed his family’s prosperity.

Reese died in 1956 at the age of 76, leaving the company to his six sons, Robert, John, Ed, Ralph, Harry, and Charles Richard Reese. In 1963, they decided to sell the business to the Hershey’s Chocolate Company, where Reese had gotten his start close to 50 years before.

Documentation shows the brothers received 666,316 Hershey shares, then valued at $23.5 million. By 2013, after 50 years of stock splits, those shares had become sixteen million shares, valued at more than $1 billion, paying $31 million in annual cash dividends.

In 2010, Hershey sponsored a Facebook petition to declare May 18 I Love Reese’s Day and reported that 40,000 people signed it. Since then, it’s been promoted by the National Peanut Board and reigns as the most popular candy in the United States.

Today, Hershey announced it will introduce a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup stuffed with Reese’s Pieces. Tasty combination or culinary abomination? You decide and, no matter what your favorite is, have a happy I Love Reese’s Day!

May 17 is National Walnut Day

May 17, 2017/0 Comments/in May

Today is National Walnut Day, created in 1949 by the Walnut Marketing Board. The holiday was affirmed in 1958 by the official proclamation of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Most walnuts come from the Persian or English tree, Juglans regia, originally grown in Asia and now cultivated around the world. The lesser-known eastern black walnut tree, Juglans nigra, and butternut or white walnut tree, Juglans cinerea, are native to eastern North America.

According to Harpers’ Latin Dictionary, the genus gets its name from the Latin word for walnut tree, jūglans, which is a contraction of Jōvis glans, which translates to “nut of [the god] Jupiter.” Perhaps that explains why many sites claim the arginine found in walnuts dilates blood vessels and increases blood flow, causing erections. (Don’t munch a handful before a business meeting.)

Black walnut has been hailed by some as a miracle cure because of its alleged ability to kill a parasite that is supposedly responsible for cancer. No word on whether it works: We can’t get anyone who used it to answer our calls.

In China, walnuts are prized for a different reason. Reuters reported in 2012 that a secondary market in “cultural playthings” had emerged as a result of weak or negative returns in the traditional stock market.

Once the toys of China’s imperial court, walnuts have become popular among the wealthy, who see them as a status symbol as well as an investment. They are collected in pairs and rotated in one’s hand to improve circulation.

Collector Kou Baojun in Beijing told Reuters that the larger, older and more symmetrical the walnuts are, the more highly they are valued and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. He owns more than 30 pairs, most of which are over a century old and have become burnished from years of being polished in the palm.

“Look how well these have aged,” Kou said. “Playing with these kinds of walnuts isn’t for ordinary people.”

Grab a pair and have a happy National Walnut Day!

May 15 is National Slider Day

May 15, 2017/0 Comments/in May

Today is National Slider Day, created in 2015 by the marketing geniuses at White Castle. It follows NYC Burger Week from May 1-7 and falls squarely in the middle of National Hamburger Month.

There’s debate about the origin of the slider. White Castle takes credit but others say it dates to the 1940s when the U.S. Navy invented the term to describe a tiny, greasy burger that slid down easily. The version with cheese was referred to as a “slider with a lid.”

Since then, that thin strip of beef topped with onions and pickles has evolved into upscale fare. Trying to ingest a nouveau slider in one bite could present a choking hazard and result in a request that you leave the restaurant immediately.

No matter how you plan to celebrate, have a happy National Slider Day!

May 14 is Underground America Day

May 14, 2017/0 Comments/in May

Today is Underground America Day, created in 1974 by architect Malcolm Wells. After designing the RCA Pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair, which would be torn down only two years later, he came to the conclusion that every structure he built needlessly destroyed that which had previously lived in its footprint.

He described his epiphany this way: “I woke up one day to the fact that the Earth’s surface was made for living plants, not industrial plants.”

This led to his espousal of “gentle architecture,” construction in harmony with nature. He built his home and offices underground, wrote several books about environmental design and lectured at Harvard and elsewhere.

He had a great sense of humor about the day he’d created. “On May 14th each year, hundreds of millions of people all across this great land will do absolutely nothing about the national holiday I declared in 1974, and that’s just the way it should be, he said.

“It’s a holiday free of holiday obligations. You don’t even have to lose a day of work. But if you’re the partying type, here are some of the ways in which you can observe the big day.”

courtesy malcolmwells.com

Wells died in November of 2009 at the age of 83. He penned his own obituary, which you can read here. It makes us wish we’d gotten the chance to know him. Happy Underground America Day!

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