July 15 is
Tapioca Pudding Day
Gummi Worm Day
Pet Fire Safety Day
Give Something Away Day
Woodie Wagon Day
Celebration of the Horse Day
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MORE! Rembrandt Van Rijn, Emmeline Pankhurst and Julian Bream, click
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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Britain – St. Swithun’s Day
Brunei – His Majesty the Sultan’s Birthday
Canada – Montreal:
Just for Laughs Festival (ongoing)
Germany – Cologne: Kölner Lichter Festival
Isle of Man – Castletown Harbour:
World Tin Bath Championship
Italy – Palermo: Feast of St Rosalia
(Palermo’s patron saint)
Kiribati – Unimwane Day
(Senior Citizens’ Day)
Netherlands – Eindhoven:
Dynamo Metalfest
Turkey – Democracy and Freedom Day
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On This Day in HISTORY
484 BC – Dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (the twins of the constellation Gemini) in Rome
756 – In the middle of the An Lushan Rebellion, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty is given an ultimatum by his Imperial Guards: execute chancellor Yang Guozhong by forcing him to commit suicide, or face a mutiny
1099 – The First Crusade: Christian soldiers take Jerusalem
1573 – Inigo Jones born, English architect
1606 – Rembrandt Van Rijn, Dutch painter, is born
Self Portrait c 1665 by Rembrandt van Rijn
1638 – Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani born, Italian violinist and composer
1741 – Russian Captain Aleksei Chirikov sights Southeast Alaska, and sends men ashore in a longboat, the first Europeans to be recorded making landfall in Alaska
1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in Rosetta, Egypt, by Pierre-François Bouchard
1834 – The Spanish Inquisition officially disbanded after 356 years
1858 – Emmeline Pankhurst, British Woman’s Suffrage leader, is born
1870 – Georgia is the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union
1884 – Enrique Soro Barriga born, aka Enrique Soro, Chilean symphonic composer, professor and later director at the National Conservatory of Music of Chile
1901 – Over 74,000 Pittsburgh steel workers go on strike
1904 – First Buddhist temple in the U.S. established in Los Angeles
1905 – Dorothy Fields born, American songwriter
1919 – Iris Murdoch born in Ireland, British novelist and philosopher
1922 – First duck-billed platypus seen in America exhibited at NYC Bronx Zoo
1928 – Anita Brookner, CBE born, British author and art historian, won the Man Booker Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac
1933 – Julian Bream born, English virtuoso on the classical guitar
1942 – Glenn Miller and his band record “Jukebox Saturday Night”
1944 – The Greenwich Observatory is damaged by a WW II German bomb
1955 – 18 Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by 34 more laureates
1965 – Mariner IV spacecraft sends back first close-up photos of planet Mars
1971 – US President Nixon announces he will visit the People’s Republic of China
1987 – Taiwan ends 37 years of martial law
1988 – Movie Die Hard is released in the U.S.
1997 – Donatella Versace launches her first couture collection for her brother’s Versace label, a year after his murder
2006 – The social media platform Twitter is launched
2009 – The movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in U.S. theaters
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More duck bills – just too cute!
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
So — wait a minute — how come today is not “duckbill platypus day” too or at least “duckbill platypus in America day”? Oh, and thank you so much for that picture of the little duckbill; so cute! But this brings up: how do they decide what “day” today gets to be? Who decides that?
Hi Malisha –
Some person thinks “there should be a day for this!” and declares it – then if they want it to spread, they try to get some group or government or the UN to endorse it.
There’s a National “registry” online that is one of my major sources – many of the days I list are from the registry – they should probably be shown as “National _____ Day” but the names are often so long – if it would interfere with the picture I’m using, I drop the “national.”
Most, but not all, officially recognized UN days start with “World” or “International” but so do a lot of days that they’ve never sanctioned. However, you usually can tell if an International Day is a UN day because most of them have extremely long and and involved titles like:
International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action (April 4)
Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives During the Second World War (May 8-9, maybe because it takes two days to say it?!)
International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict (June 19)
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition (August 23)
The UN “World” Days are usually shorter, like: World Mental Health Day
I don’t use all the Days I find – I won’t promote Days that are Sexist, Racist,or Right-Wing, or any that seem to me more stupid than silly – my blog, so I get to decide what I use!
If you want to start a “Duckbill Platypus in America Day” I’ll be happy to promote it!
Also, I try to avoid days that are started by businesses just to promote their business (well, Krispy Kreme Donut Day is an exception – I’m not a fanatic)
Did you ever see the “Hitler in the Bunker Clip” about the Krispy Kremes? Funniest damn thing. My son told me that at University of Virginia there was a 24-hour drive-through Krispy Kreme! The Hitler bunker clip is here:
LOL! Thanks for sharing
If you think the adults are cute . . .I added a picture of a pair of baby duck bills at the end of this Day.
adowabble! I love their little feets.