# Holidays we should celebrate, but don't



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

An initial suggestion: October 4. On that day in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, a 23-inch polished metal sphere, the first artificial satellite, whose beeps could be heard and whose reflected sunlight could be seen all over the earth. We probably don't celebrate it in the West because our own space program, plagued by bureaucracy, had by then yielded nothing but spectacular failures.

This was the true beginning of the space age and will be so remembered. Newton had visualized this many years before in his Mathematica Principia, which has a drawing of a cannonball being fired horizontally from a very high mountain peak.

What other dates should we celebrate, but don't?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I would like to have a National Opera Day. I don't know on what basis to set a date for it, but it would be fun if everyone on that day had to sing whatever they wanted to say. I tried it around the house but my wife and kids did not take well to it. Maybe if I could sing better...


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I have a real fondness for All Hallows (All Saints' Day) that falls on 1 November, right after Hallowe'en, of course.

I know there are many others. I will think on it


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

4th of October (started 2006). Last time I wanted to create a thread on the topic of freedom of information I was advised by the moderators not to. So I won't say anything more about why this is an important date.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Perhaps June 21 (1983), call it _1984's day_?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

4th May is already celebrated by geeks, but can do with more popularization. 

And perhaps Carl Sagan's birthday is worthy of celebration? (Yes, I am a geek).


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

brianvds said:


> 4th May is already celebrated by geeks, but can do with more popularization.
> 
> And perhaps Carl Sagan's birthday is worthy of celebration? (Yes, I am a geek).


In that case, how about the 23rd of November?


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

UN Memorial day on 18 of September* to celebrate the memory of all those who have been killed in the line of duty for the United Nations!

*The date when UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in action in Congo in 1961.

/ptr


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

October 15 - in remembrance of Thomas Sankara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

National Toilet Paper Day. 
Has any other invention done as much for mankind? No, forget it, let's put that behind us.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

First, let me begin by stating the holidays already observed at my workplace, which are all (fortunately) paid-days-off: (all dates given are for next year)

New Year's Day- 1 Jan
Martin Luther King Jr Birthday- 15 Jan
Presidents Day- 12 Feb
Good Friday- 3 Apr
Memorial Day- 25 May
Independence Day- (observed) Fri 3 July
Labor Day- 7 Sept
Columbus Day- 12 Oct
Election Day- 3 Nov
Veterans Day- 11 Nov
Thanksgiving Day- 26 Nov
Christmas Day- 25 Dec

O.K.: I'm lucky to have a job that has a dozen paid holidays... but November is a "holiday-heavy" span (three in not much more than 3 weeks). The span from Christmas to King Day is similar. I would sacrifice Election Day in return for an early August holiday... not technically a 'Midsummer Day' but a _Middle-of-Summer_ Day, to be celebrated in a similar spirit.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

How about "Moon Day" -- July 20, 1969, when America first landed on the moon?


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## Guest (Dec 7, 2014)

QuietGuy said:


> How about "Moon Day" -- July 20, 1969, when America first landed on the moon?


Supposedly. At least that's what they tell us.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Critic Alex Ross has (jokingly) called for the celebration of "Atonality Day" on December 17, the date when Schoenberg wrote his song "Ich darf nicht dankend":





A key signature was later added to the piece, though the music itself wasn't changed at all.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Triplets said:


> National Toilet Paper Day.
> Has any other invention done as much for mankind? No, forget it, let's put that behind us.


That reminds me. I am running out. Have to rush to the store and get more. A National Toilet Paper Day would increase awareness of maintaining a stockpile and may alert some in the back hills that you don't have to use corn cobs any more.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

brianvds said:


> 4th May is already celebrated by geeks, but can do with more popularization.


I just got that one hehe
Strong is the force in me today


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> In that case, how about the 23rd of November?


I wouldn't know. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and there is a huge list of events and birthdays, but nothing that jumped out at me. Perhaps I'll get it if I spend several hours combing through all of it. 

Geek as I may be, I confess that prior to this thread, I did not know what Sagan's birthday was either - had to go look it up.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

October 7 - in remembrance of Anna Politkovskaya

...of course I could keep going and do this, making holidays for all my heros who were murdered, but we might have few days left in the year to get any work done

so maybe not a holiday, just some reminder and moment of reflection, then


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

brianvds said:


> I wouldn't know. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and there is a huge list of events and birthdays, but nothing that jumped out at me. Perhaps I'll get it if I spend several hours combing through all of it.
> 
> Geek as I may be, I confess that prior to this thread, I did not know what Sagan's birthday was either - had to go look it up.


23rd of November 1963, first airing of Doctor Who.....


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> 23rd of November 1963, first airing of Doctor Who.....


Believe it or not, but I have never seen a single episode of the show. It was never aired here, as far as I know. Then again, I haven't owned a TV in years, so I may be out of touch.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

SimonNZ said:


> October 7 - in remembrance of Anna Politkovskaya
> 
> ...of course I could keep going and do this, making holidays for all my heros who were murdered, but we might have few days left in the year to get any work done
> 
> so maybe not a holiday, just some reminder and moment of reflection, then


I don't know these people you are posting about Simon, but yes, after quick research they do indeed seem to be heroes.

People like this should be household names, and yet there appears to be a news blackout on them in the west. So much for freedom of the press.


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

Wood said:


> I don't know these people you are posting about Simon, but yes, after quick research they do indeed seem to be heroes.
> 
> People like this should be household names, and yet there appears to be a news blackout on them in the west. So much for freedom of the press.


Well, her articles were written in Russian, I am assuming, so those tend to not be published elsewhere. But I remember this journalist, and a very quick search showed 83 articles in the New York Times alone about her since her murder, so I hardly think that counts as a news blackout. I think its just a matter of how many people, for how many causes, we think that everybody should mourn. Not to be callous, but it is pretty hard to be mindful of every person that everybody says we should be mindful of. That is why we pretty much narrow down the field of those for whom we celebrate with holidays to a smaller group with much broader and more far-reaching impacts on us and our lives.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

brianvds said:


> Believe it or not, but I have never seen a single episode of the show. It was never aired here, as far as I know. Then again, I haven't owned a TV in years, so I may be out of touch.


I've lived all my life in the UK (where they are shown) and have never seen a single episode either


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