Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
June 16 is Ladies’ Day
Today is Ladies’ Day, devised to attract more women to baseball games and convert them to fans. The New York Gothams’ management held the first Ladies’ Day on Tuesday, June 16, 1883, at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan. All women, both escorted and unescorted, were admitted free. The Gothams beat the Cleveland Spiders 5-2 that […]
June 15 is Magna Carta Day
Magna Carta Day, explained in the style of Jeff Spicoli: In 1215, the king of England was a total wad, so a bunch of rich baron dudes got together and decided his divine right was bogus, so they drew up some cool rules they called the Great Charter until somebody said it sounded way more […]
June 14 is Pop Goes the Weasel Day
Today is Pop Goes the Weasel Day, celebrating the rhyme we’ve known since childhood and the tune that sticks in our heads every time we hear it played on an ice cream truck. But what does the song mean? The short answer is that it’s probably nonsense verse made popular (no pun intended) because children enjoyed […]
June 13 is National Pigeon Day
Today is National Pigeon Day. It honors Cher Ami, a carrier pigeon that valiantly completed its World War I mission to deliver military intelligence to the U.S. Army in France, even after being shot and suffering a partially severed limb. It succumbed to its injuries several months later on June 13, 1919. Ami was posthumously awarded the […]
June 12 is National Jerky Day
Today is National Jerky Day, created in 2012 by the Wisconsin Beef Council to bring awareness to the history, nutritional benefits and status of meat snacks as the “fourth-largest-grossing sector in the overall salty-snack category.” For 2014’s celebration, Jack Link’s beef jerky company built a replica of Mount Rushmore, covered it in 1,600 pounds of jerky and displayed […]
June 10 is the Banana Split Festival
June 10, 2016, marked the 22nd annual Banana Split Festival. Behind the scenes of this sweet celebration, a battle has raged for years between the citizens of two All-American towns. Each year, the festivities honor Ernest Hazard of Wilmington, Ohio, who concocted the treat in 1907 to attract Wilmington College students to his establishment. He halved a banana, added […]
Donald Duck Day
June 9 is Donald Duck Day. It celebrates the date in 1934 when he first appeared in a Disney cartoon called “The Wise Little Hen.” In his 1941 authorized biography, The Life of Donald Duck, he revealed he’d been born on Friday the 13th. When he starred in “Donald’s Happy Birthday” in 1949, his car’s license plate […]
June 8 is Hannah Duston Day
Today is Hannah Duston Day. On June 8, 1697, she became the first official heroine of the American colonies when her husband was awarded the sum of 25 pounds in her honor. As a woman, she was technically her husband’s property and had no right to collect the money herself, but we suppose it’s the […]
National Yo-Yo Day
Today is National Yo-Yo Day, created by Daniel Volk in 1990 to celebrate the birthday of Donald F. Duncan (1892-1971), whose company popularized the toy. A simple yo-yo resembles a small spool with a string knotted around a center groove or axle. Holding the free end of the string, one uses spin, gravity and momentum […]
Festival of Popular Delusions Day
Today is Festival of Popular Delusions Day. It is said to have originated in Germany on June 5, 1945. Let’s begin with a little background information regarding this mysterious holiday. On June 6, 1944, over 160,000 Allied soldiers landed on a 50-mile stretch of beach in Normandy, France. The area was heavily guarded by Nazi […]