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15 more new holiday ideas

So while many of us know of big, major, national, and/or religious holidays, there are many obscure ones out there! You can find out about a fair few of these on the National Day website. However, as far as I know, the ones listed below would be new ones that I think could be fun, meaningful, or just wacky to celebrate. You can read my first "15 new holiday ideas" if you'd like!

  1. Let Birds Swear Day to be celebrated on June 10th to commemorate when Andrew Jackson's pet parrot Poll (that he'd taught to swear) was ousted from his funeral on that day in 1845 for swearing up a storm (yes, this may be an apocryphal story, but I don't super mind that)
  2. Juliette Gordon Low Day to be celebrated on October 31st to commemorate when the founder of Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low, was born in 1860
  3. Deep Dish Day to be celebrated on September 9th to commemorate the birth of Ike Sewell, who likely co-created the first deep dish pizza, in 1903
  4. Satirical Onion Day to be celebrated on August 29th to commemorate when the first issue of The Onion was printed in 1988
  5. Furever Home Day to be celebrated on April 14th to commemorate the first animal shelter opening in the US on that day in 1869 by activist Caroline Earle White
  6. Sweetlips, Scentwell, and Vulcan Day to be celebrated on April 30th to commemorate George Washington assuming the role of president of the US and thus Washington's dogs (yes, those are their names) becoming the first presidential dogs in 1789
  7. Save a Raccoon Day to be celebrated on Thanksgiving to commemorate when there was a raccoon given to US president Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace Coolidge to be eaten for Thanksgiving in 1926, but Grace fell in love with the raccoon. Grace named the raccoon Rebecca and proceeded to spoil her
  8. Three Popes Day to be celebrated on June 26th to commemorate when a third simultaneous pope was selected on that day in 1409 following the Council of Pisa
  9. RIP Onion Futures Day to be celebrated on August 28th to commemorate the passing of the Onion Futures Act on that day in 1958 (which banned the trading of futures contracts on onions as well as "motion picture box office receipts")
  10. American Novel Day to be celebrated on January 21st to commemorate the publishing of the book considered to be the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature by William Hill Brown, on that day in 1789
  11. Let's Eat Babies Day to be celebrated on January 1st to commemorate the publishing of the satirical A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (aka A Modest Proposal) by Jonathan Swift in 1729 (NB: I could not find an exact publication date, but it was published in early 1729 as there were responses to the work beginning in at least February)
  12. Welcome Martian Invaders Day to be celebrated on October 31st to commemorate when Orson Welles's adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds aired on the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938, causing some panic
  13. Max Headroom Incident Day to be celebrated on November 22nd to commemorate that wild time hijackers someone got control of the television signals of two stations in Chicago to briefly send a pirate broadcast of an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume on that day in 1987
  14. Sometimes Corporations Do the Right Thing Day to be celebrated on October 5th to commemorate when, in response to the Chicago Tylenol murders, Johnson & Johnson--the manufacturer of Tylenol--issued a nationwide recall of Tylenol products on that day in 1982
  15. Calling in Gay to Work Works Day to be celebrated on October 19th to commemorate the day in 1979 in Sweden when, as a result of folks calling in "gay" instead of "sick" to work because being queer was still classified as a mental illness, the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden removed that classification

(Prompt by Sylvie Ramirez)

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash


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