1. National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day 2. World Tuberculosis Day
And for the month of March?
1. National Women's History Month 2. National Umbrella Month
USA Today published an article on March 14 2020 where the author proclaimed:
"If someone ever wanted to completely waste their whole life but didn’t know how, they could simply strive to devote themselves to the careful observation of every single day of inane celebration and inadequate awareness."
"In response, I propose that we create a “National Day Against National Days” to raise awareness and protest bad and unnecessary “national days” for one day every year. Please use #NationalDayAgainstNationalDays on social media and observe how national days are ruining not only our timelines but our lives."
This nationally published plea did not work as there are only two posts for the hashtag and the latest is this article. So there must be a lot of people with a stake in one or some of those nearly 1,500 National Days, National Weeks and National Months.
There are massive financial implications in these days. Consuming the products being celebrated is the main activity so increased sales is the goal. The company that runs the National Day Calendar website receives 20,000 applications a year for new celebrations. Only 25 applications are accepted. I don't know what makes them limit the number. It seems that people want more opportunities to talk about silly and inconsequential things. Avocados turned out to be very popular as a national day. The two days that have been astonishingly successful are Amazon Prime Day in the U.S. and Singles Day in China. They generated $17 billion in sales.
And there's the draw in these days. Mostly it is fun and inconsequential things that take the centre stage for a day, with a few monumental celebrations sprinkled in. Today's? March 24th 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that causes tuberculosis (TB).
And our pictures today are part of the lead-up to our next celebration of National Model Railroad Month on Tuesday, November 1st 2022.
