User:Crunchydillpickle/List of unusual anniversaries

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This is a list of anniversaries that was initially compiled by Crunchydillpickle and hopefully will be lovingly nurtured by Wikipedians who enjoy calendar-driven trivia and oddities. It's as if WP:UNUSUAL and WP:OTD had a baby! I would love if you added to it, but please be aware that I'll remove any additions that I don't consider sufficiently unusual (sorry). If you were thinking "Hm, this is cool, but I wish it were less goofy and more focused on classical music!" then boy oh boy are you going to love Gerda Arent's page!

Notices!

  • I need to add some entries from the list of unusual deaths and list of last words.
  • Some of my summaries are almost certainly a little wrong. I copied some of these over from a document that a friend and I have slowly, sloppily maintained for months. Imagine a phantom [citation needed] tag next to everything.

Things I'd like to find a date for:

January[edit]

Misc: Cadaver Synod (date unknown)

Date
January 0
January 1
  • Hatsuyume, the first dream of the new year in Japanese culture. For good luck, dream of eggplant, hawks, and Mount Fuji.
January 2
  • On approximately this day in 1962, the Candy Desk began providing US senators with mis-session candy.
  • Bean dad fallout occurred on Twitter in 2021.
January 3
  • In 2005, FOX launched the reality show Who's Your Daddy? in which an orphan girl had to figure out which of eight men was her biological father.
January 4
January 5
  • In 2002, a Florida teen stole a small airplane and crashed it into the Bank of America tower in downtown Tampa. Other than him, no one died.
January 6
January 7
January 8
  • George H. W. Bush vomiting incident occurred in 1992.
  • Emperor Norton died in 1880. San Francisco Chronicle led its article on Norton's funeral with the headline "Le Roi Est Mort." ("The King is dead"). People discovered that his tall tales about being rich were, as suspected, not true. His funeral had a rumored 2 mile cortege and 10,000 people came to view his body.
  • In 1999, Disney recalled copies of its animated movie The Rescuers because a scene showed a topless woman in the background.
January 9
  • In 1493, Christopher Columbus saw three mermaids and described them as "not half as beautiful as they are painted". They were almost certainly manatees.
  • Fred Ott's Sneeze was released in 1894, the US's oldest surviving copyrighted film. It is a 5-second reel of a man (one of Thomas Edison's assistants) with a weird sneeze.
January 10
  • Jack Lew was nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury in 2013. He almost didn't get the job because his extremely loopy signature would have looked weird on the US currency (he changed his signature).
January 11
  • Kagami biraki, a Japanese holiday in honor of the odd numbers in the 1/11 date (odd numbers are good luck). Perhaps you, like me, are not Japanese but will take advantage of any excuse to drink sake.
January 12
  • 1992 Troy State vs. DeVry men's basketball game finished with a score of 141-258, making it the highest-scoring NCAA game in history.
  • In 2007, a Sacramento radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest ended in death by water intoxication.
  • In 2004, an 84-year-old Kenyan man named Kimani Maruge became the oldest person to begin elementary school.
  • 1942, Lytle S. Adams proposed sending bat bombs to Japan. "Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life."
  • In 1996, Georgia State Representative Doug Teper unsuccessfully sponsored a bill to replace that state's electric chair with the guillotine.
  • 2016 Pannenkoek2012
January 13
  • Bush choked on pretzel in 2001.
  • 2018 Hawaii false missile alert .
  • In 1920, a New York Times editorial said rockets could never work in space because in a vacuum there was nothing for them to push against. It later issued a correction and said it regretted the error.
January 14
  • Feast of the Ass
  • In 1872 Greyfriars Bobby died, a Skye Terrier who became famous in Edinburgh for spending fourteen years guarding the grave of his owner.
  • There's an NHL rule which says that players need to referee the game themselves if no officials can attend the game. It was enforced one time at a Hartford Whalers vs. New Jersey Devils game during a snowstorm on January 15, 1983.
January 15
  • Great Molasses Flood happened in Boston in 1919.
  • A small online encyclopedia project called "Wikipedia" started in 2001.
  • Toronto hobby tunnel was discovered near the Pan Am Games venue. It was not, as some feared terrorism, but the passion project of a young construction worker who really liked digging.
January 16
  • First flower grown in space in 2016! The picture in the article is very cute and oddly emotional. We are all little flowers hurtling through the universe.
  • Wikipedia's incredible Boops boops article was created in 2011.
January 17
January 18
January 19
January 20
January 21
January 22
January 23
  • In 1978, Terry Kath, guitarist and vocalist of the band Chicago, dies shooting himself in the head while cleaning his gun. His last words were allegedly "Don't worry, guys; it isn't loaded."
  • In 1996, a man suffocated after sleeping with tampons in his nose in an attempt to stop snoring.
  • In 1882 in Victorian London, a rogue writer inserted the phrase "The speaker then said he felt inclined for a bit of fucking" in a news article. It was called the "Harcourt interpolation."
January 24
  • Bong Hits 4 Jesus banner unfurled in 2002, which eventually led to a Supreme Court case.
  • An Air Force B-52 nearly nukes Greensboro, North Carolina in 1961.
January 25
  • Ship launched using 7,000 pounds of ripe bananas instead of traditional launching grease in 1941.
January 26
  • 1979 Nelson Rockefeller dies, prompting New York Magazine to write "Nelson thought he was coming, but he was going."
  • Atlanta Nights science fiction book published (outing PublishAmerica as a vanity press)
  • Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” in 1998 (this is not remotely obscure but I'm keeping it for now)
  • There's an annual Australian cockroach racing event
  • In 1972, Vesna Vulović survived the highest fall without a parachute: 6.31 miles She was the sole survivor after a briefcase bomb tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367.
January 27
  • One of my favorite Bushisms: Bush implores an audience to imagine themselves as a single mother "working hard to put food on your family" in 2000.
  • Barbados vs Grenada soccer match. Both teams had to try to score goals against themselves. tk more
January 28
January 29
January 30
  • The Noid Hostage Crisis in 1989.
  • German cannibal Armin Meiwes arrested in 2002 after murdering and eating a guy (what's unusual is that the victim had previously consented to getting his penis severed and eaten).
January 31

February[edit]

Date
February 1
  • Mathematicians Cox and Zucker published the obscene-sounding algorithm called the "Cox Zucker machine" in 1979.
February 2
  • In 1942, war clouds blacked out the groundhog shadow.
  • NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio dropped the groundhog in 2014.
February 3
February 4
  • Franz Reichelt died jumping off Eiffel with homemade parachute in 1912.
  • George HW Bush sent a letter around the White House saying his dog was getting fat.
February 5
February 6
February 7
February 8
February 9
  • An attorney who is now known as the Zoom Cat lawyer struggled to disable a cat filter during a Zoom civil forfeiture case in 2021.
February 10
February 11
  • "The wrong type of snow" phrase, which came to denote pointless excuses, was coined by the British media in 1991.
  • Vice President Dick Cheney shot a man in 2006.
February 12
February 13
  • Floor of the National Corvette Museum collapsed 2014 due to a sinkhole, damaging eight rare and one-of-a-kind Corvettes that were together worth a million dollars.
February 14
February 15
February 16
  • Fuddle Duddle incident, where PM Pierre Trudeau uttered unparliamentary language in Canada's House of Commons in 1971.
February 17
February 18
  • In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne drunkenly urinated on a cenotaph that memorialized the Alamo. He was banned from the city of San Antonio for a decade.
  • In 1930, Pluto was discovered. Since it takes 248 years to orbit the sun, it had only completed less than half of an orbit as an official planet before it was demoted in 2006.
  • Bernard C. Webber singlehandedly saved 32 of 33 men when a ship broke in half during a 1952 storm.
February 19
February 20
February 21
February 22
  • Twosday (2022)
  • Zamboni driver David Ayres stepped in as an NHL emergency goalie in 2020.
  • The universally-panned Broadway play Moose murders had its single performance in 1983.
February 23
February 24
February 25
February 26
  • The Dress went viral in 2015.
  • Spanish Wikipedia split from the rest of the Wikimedia projects in an event memorialized as The Spanish Fork, back in 2002 (it has since re-joined!).
February 27
  • Barbados 4-2 Grenada football game, in which bizarre rule introduced perverse incentives, happened in 1994.
February 28
February 29
  • Buenos Aires “Wobbly Rock” fell over in 1912.
  • La Bougie Sapeur, a satirical French newspaper only published on leap day, launched in 1980.

March[edit]

Date
March 1
March 2
  • On March 2, 2005, congresswoman Ellen Tauscher used the Sedan nuclear test as an example of a test which produced a considerable amount of radioactive fallout. The name "Sedan" was incorrectly transcribed as "Sudan" in the Congressional Record, which sparked international outrage about supposed nukes in Sudan
March 3
March 4
March 5
March 6
  • Moving sofa problem was published. (note to self: check later. had this in my notes)
March 7
March 8
March 9
March 10
March 11
March 12
March 13
March 14
March 15
  • In 1995, the defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics registered the first .com domain, symbolics.com.
  • According to 1920s custom, straw hats could be worn in New York City from March 15 to September 15. (Violations of this rule led to the Straw Hat Riot in 1922).
March 16
  • Tsutomu Yamaguchi, one of the few people to survive both Nagasaki and Hiroshima, was born in 1916
  • Jeopardy had a three-way tie in 2007. I am including this because I really like Jeopardy.
  • Saint Urho — Minnesota invented its own St. Patrick equivalent
March 17
  • Salmon chaos, where tons of Taiwanese people legally changed their names to Salmon to take advantage of a restaurant promo, occured in 2021
March 18
  • Guy was suspended from school for wearing Pepsi shirt on National Coke Day in 1998. Sadly, there is no Wikipedia article about this. But I have nothing else for March 18, so here you go.
March 19
March 20
  • Shinzo Kanakuri finally finished his 1912 Olympic marathon with a time of 54 years and 8 months 6 days 5 hours 32 minutes 20 seconds. He commented "It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren. It was 1967.
March 21
March 22
March 23
March 24
  • Baseball pitcher Randy Johnson hit a bird in 2001. The bird exploded.
  • In 1924, a Bronx Zoo orangutan indicated to a chess player that he should open with b4. He did and the opening is now sometimes called The Orangutan. The game ended in a draw.
March 25
  • Jonah Hill's performance in 21 Jump Street ended Kanye West's antisemitism in 2023
  • Ward Cunningham started the first wiki website in 1995. This is not particularly "weird" or "wacky" but I like wiki history.
March 26
March 27
March 28
March 29
  • Hyphen War ended in 1990. Not sure if this is particularly weird, but like many Wikipedians, I enjoy punctuation-related debates.
  • Clinton said “I didn’t inhale” referring to marijuana.
March 30
  • Chicago Mayor Daley bulldozed an airport called Meigs Field overnight without any warning in 2003
March 31

April[edit]

  • Unknown date: Roy Sullivan got struck by lightening for the first time in 1942. He survived six more strikes in his life.
  • Mrs. Miller's deliberately bad cover of "Downtown" peaked at #82 on the Billboard charts in 1966
Date
April 1
April 2
April 3
April 4
April 5
April 6
April 7
  • Disney delayed the release of A Goofy Movie from Thanksgiving 1994 to April 7, 1995 because three-quarters of the animated film had to be refilmed all because of a single dead pixel on a faulty monitor.
  • National Beer Day in the United States honors the end of Prohibition in 1933 (technically, the 21st Amendment didn't pass until December 5).
April 8
  • A bear named Wojtek joined the Polish military in 1942.
  • John Phillips, thought to be the longest serving prisoner in the United States, was locked up on April 8, 1952.
April 9
  • In 1942, fifty elephants performed in pink tutus at Madison Square Garden as part of the Circus Polka by Stravinsky.
  • In 1984, a mysterious mushroom cloud appeared and was witnessed by more than one aircraft crew about 200 miles east of Japan. No radiation was ever detected. (NYTimes)
  • In 2013, when Margaret Thatcher died, some people misinterpreted the Twitter hashtag "#nowthatchersdead" to mean "Now that Cher's dead"
April 10
  • Dalai Lama "suck my tongue" incident 2023?
  • In 1877, the first “Human Cannonball” stunt was performed by 14-year old Rossa Matilda Richter at the Royal Aquarium in London.
April 11
April 12
April 13
  • New York Sun published a story in 1844 about a man crossing the Atlantic in three days, but it turned out to be The Balloon-Hoax orchestrated by Edgar Allan Poe.
April 14
April 15
  • Euthenasia Coaster concept was unveiled in 2011
  • Seattle mayor asked President Eisenhower for help with a "windshield epidemic" (which was actually a mass delusion) in 1954
  • British comedian Tommy Cooper suffered a fatal heart attack on live television in 1984.
April 16
  • The birthday of Grape-kun, the penguin who fell in love with an anime cutout character.
  • In 2003, the CNN.com premature obituary incident, pre-written draft obituaries for many public figured came to light. Because The Queen Mother's obituary was used as a template and the drafts were not finished, Dick Cheney was described as the "UK's favorite grandmother."
April 17
  • Piss Christ was vandalized by Christian protesters in 2011
April 18
  • 1930, the BBC reported “there is no news” and instead played piano music (mentioned on the April 18 Wikipedia article)
April 19
  • Some guy in Pompeii made bread. We know this because a graffito that reads “XIII K. Maias panem feci” (On April 19, I made bread) survived the eruption.
April 20
April 21
  • Mark Twain was born on the day when Halley’s Comet flew by Earth and said once, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.” He died the day of Halley's Comet's next appearance, April 21, 1910.
April 22
April 23
April 24
  • The first ever Josh Fight took place at Air Park in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2021.
April 25
  • Pepsi fruit juice flood happed in Russia in 2017
  • Lisztomania, the term for the mass love epidemic directed toward strapping young piano player Franz Liszt, was coined in 1844
April 26
April 27
  • First pirates were elected to national legislature (in Iceland)
  • Bus Uncle video was released in 2006
April 28
April 29
  • In 1945, one day before his death, Hitler order Dr. Werner Haase to test his cyanide capsules on his dog Blondi. Blondi died, and Hitler died the next day.
  • Televangelist Pat Robertson predicted the world would be destroyed on this day in 2007.
  • In 2015, a Chicago White Sox vs Baltimore Orioles game had (at the time) the lowest attendance for a Major League Baseball game. Due to security concerns regarding the civil unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, no fans were allowed.
  • Happy birthday to Tama, the calico cat who worked as a train station master in Japan.
April 30

May[edit]

Date
May 1
May 2
  • Comcast accidentally replaced a Handy Manny broadcast with hard-core pornography for viewers in Lincroft, New Jersey in 2007.
May 3
  • Liberian general election 1927, most fraudulent election in recorded history with a 1,119% voter turnout rate.
  • In 1991, a warehouse in Milwaukee caught on fires and sent a river of liquid butter through the streets of Milwaukee. The Wisconsin Butter Fire continued to burn for a days.
May 4
May 5
  • In 1880, Adrian Carton de Wiart was born. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; was blinded in his left eye; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."
May 6
  • In 2006, Devin Gaines attracted media attention for graduating with five degrees. Months later, he died because he didn't know how to swim.
May 7
May 8
  • In 2006, a man named Guy Goma who went to the BBC for a job interview was instead interviewed on live TV about a technology lawsuit.
May 9
  • In an operation called Orbiting Frog Otolith, NASA launched bullfrogs into orbit to see if they could balance in 1971.
May 10
  • In the 1893 case Nix v. Hedden, the US Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes were, for fiscal purposes, vegetables.
  • The app Send Me To Heaven, which encouraged people to throw their phones in the air, was released in 2013.
May 11
  • Cello Scrotum letter was printed in the British Medical Journal in 1974
May 12
May 13
May 14
May 15
May 16
  • Bliefield conspiracy, a bizarre joke where Germans pretend the city of Bliefield doesn't exist, started in 1994
  • In 2001, British deputy prime minister John Prescott punched a protestor who threw an egg at him. History (and Wikipedia) remembers the incident as the Prescott punch.
May 17
  • In 1995, a tank-driving San Diego man went on a rampage
  • In 1884, PT Barnum led elephants over the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate its strength.
  • In 1991, Lenin was a mushroom aired. It was a Soviet TV hoax that announced that Lenin had turned into a mushroom and millions of citizens believed it.
May 18
May 19
  • On May 19th, 1999 when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace released into theaters, an estimated 2.2 million full time employees missed work to watch the film costing the US an estimated $293 million dollars from lose of productivity.
May 20
  • World Metrology Day, the anniversary of the 1875 Metre Convention! Perhaps you can celebrate by reading the list of unusual units of measurement.
  • In 1989, Soviet pilot Aleksandr Zuyev baked a cake with sleeping pills, fed it to his squadron, and while they were sleeping he wrestled the guard on duty, took control of a Mig-29 and flew it to Turkey, and defected from the USSR to USA. All because he wasn't selected to be promoted to test pilot! He eventually became a test pilot for the US.
May 21
  • The corpse of a migrating stork nicknamed "Pfeilstorch" was found in 1822 which served as evidence for bird migration. Previously, people weren't sure where all the birds went in the winter.
  • Christian radio host Harold Camping predicted the world would end on May 21, 2011.
May 22
  • In 2020, Saturn (alligator) in the Moscow Zoo died at the age of 83. He was born in Mississippi and gifted to the Berlin Zoo in 1936 (bad timing!), where he was nicknamed "Hitler". He escaped during the allied bombing in 1943. British soldiers found him three years later and gifted him to the Soviet Union. The paragraph about his narrow escapes with death is a thrilling read. What a life!
May 23
May 24
May 25
  • In 2003 an Angola 727 airplane was stolen with two people aboard and never found
  • Pepsi Number Fever, a 1992 sales promotion in the Philippines in which Pepsi accidentally made thousands of people winners. When people learned it was a mistake, and that they wouldn't each get prizes worth $40,000, they rioted in the streets and five people died.
May 26
  • Moondog was born 1916. Not sure if this is obscure enough but putting it in anyway.
May 27
  • Start of the Centralia mine fire in 1962. The fire is still burning beneath a Pennsylvania town.
May 28
  • Mathias Rust, a teenage amateur pilot, flew across the Soviet border and through the air-defense system to land in the middle of Moscow
  • Harambe was shot in 2016
  • Crypt of Civilization, a time capsule, was sealed in 1940. It isn't supposed to be opened until the year 8113. Guinness Book of Records declared the Crypt to be the first genuine attempt to permanently preserve a record of 20th century culture for people of thousands of years into the future.
  • 1990, Pepsi Cool Cans debut. People later became convinced the word "SEX" was hidden on the can.
May 29
  • The My Way killings peaked in 2007 when a Filipino karaoke singer was shot and killed because his My Way rendition was so off-key.
May 30
May 31
  • Trump tweeted covfefe
  • The southern United States converted all 11,500+ miles of its railroads from broad gauge (5 ft/1.524 m) to nearly-standard gauge (4 ft 9 in/ 1.448 m) in just 36 hours starting on May 31, 1886

June[edit]

Date
June 1
  • In 2019, a scientific paper that found a Skrillex song to be an effective mosquito repellant was published.
June 2
June 3
June 4
  • Marvin Heemeyer went on a “killdozer” rampage through Granby, Colorado in 2004
  • In 1923, jockey Frank Hayes won a race despite dying on the horse
  • Shanghai Fugu Agreement, prank legislation providing special regulations for "certified fugu chefs", was officially agreed upon in 1984. It didn't actually make any sense, since fugu is poisonous.
  • 10 cent beer night promotion for baseball fans in Cleveland led to utter chaos in 1974
  • A chicken nugget shaped like Among Us sold for nearly $100k in 2021
June 5
June 6
  • From January 20 to June 6, 2001, 98-year-old Strom Thurmond was third in line to the U.S. presidency. he was President pro tempore of the Senate. He's also known for his legacy as a vocal opponent of the Civil Rights Act.
  • 1991 Haoui Montaug had a "suicide party" for AIDS patients but the poison didn't kill them
June 7
June 8
  • In 1959, the USPS sent mail using missiles for the first time.
  • In 2017, Pirate Joes, an operation that simply re-sold bought Trader Joes products in the US and sold them in Canada, closed amidst a lawsuit.
June 9
June 10
  • Videogame Duke Nukem Forever was released, after 14 years of development, to poor reviews. It has the Guiness World Record for longest video game development.
June 11
  • In 1997, technologist Philippe Kahn jerryrigged a cell phone and a camera and took the first cell phone photo! It was of his baby daughter — who is now a young adult.
June 12
  • In 2015 researchers Limb, Limb, Limb and Limb published a study that found that people named "Limb" were more likely to become orthopaedic surgeons than other medical specializations. In addition people named Burns, Cox, and Ball were more likely to join urology.
June 13
June 14
June 15
  • In 1859, the Pig War erupted over a dead pig
June 16
June 17
  • In 1871, lawyer Clement Vallandigham accidentally died while demonstrating how defendant could have shot themselves
  • Best Friend of Charleston became the first locomotive in the US to suffer a boiler explosion, which was (rumored to have been) caused by the fireman’s big dumpy on the steam pressure release valve (1831)
June 18
  • Dublin whiskey fire happened in 1875. It led to the deaths of 13 people—not from the fire, but from alcohol poisoning as they drank free, undiluted whiskey from the streets.
June 19
June 20
June 21
  • Garfield-themed restaurant GarfieldEats openned in 2019 with a bizarre menu of Garfield-shaped pizza, "Garficcinos", smoothies, and Garfield-shaped dark chocolate bars.
June 22
June 23
June 24
June 25
  • In 2007, an anonymous contributor updated Wikipedia with the date of Nancy Benoit's death to the relevant article hours before her body was discovered by police.
  • In 1899, Denver reporters wrote a fake story that the Great Wall of China was going to be demolished by American businesses, and it spread. The incident is remembered as the Great Wall of China hoax.
June 26
June 27
June 28
  • In 2008, Stephen Hawking hosted party for time travelers. No one arrived. Later, he sent out invitations.
June 29
June 30

July[edit]

No date:

Date
July 1
July 2
July 3
July 4
  • US President Zachary Taylor ate too much iced milk and cherries at a 4th of July party in 1850 and died five days later.
July 5
July 6
  • A stash of hidden gold and jewels called the Fenn Treasure were found in 2020 after being hidden in the Rocky Mountains for a decade.
July 7
July 8
July 9
  • British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Kosovo and met some of his namesakes, named Tonibler, in 2010 (date approximate)
  • Garry Hoy fell to his death while attempting to demonstrate the strength of the windows
  • Monkey selfie was uploaded to Wikipedia in 2011 as public domain (as "the work of a non-human animal"). A massive copyright battle ensued.
July 10
July 11
July 12
  • Disco Demolition Night in 1979. What could go wrong with encouraging people to bring unwanted disco albums to a baseball doubleheader and blowing up the records between games?
July 13
July 14
July 15
July 16
July 17
July 18
  • Cat named Stubbs was elected mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska in 1997
July 19
July 20
  • In 1969, during the moon landing, there was a baseball game with an audience of four. Max Patkin the baseball clown performed at it.
July 21
  • For the first time in 55 years, BBC Radio 1 went off air in 2023 during its Giant DJ Hunt after Greg James failed to find the last DJ in time. Its Wikipedia article was briefly edited to say that it “used to be” a radio station. 
July 22
July 23
  • 2019 Don’t Tread on Me Mettalica cougar
  • Wikipedia competitor Knol was unveiled by Google in 2008. By 2012, it was abandoned and deleted.
  • Preserved Fish died in 1846.
  • In the 1983 Gimli Glider incident, a confusion over units led a Boeing 767 plane running out of fuel mid-flight and become a glider.
July 24
  • A Saskatchewan gas station attendant named Dick Assman was introduced on Letterman in 1995. Assman the Gasman was a huge hit and he came back on the show almost every night for a month.
July 25
July 26
July 27
July 28
July 29
  • Juan Pujol Garcia, a Spanish double agent against Nazi Germany, was awarded an Iron Cross in 1944. The Nazis had no idea they’d been fooled.
July 30
  • In 1931, Merriam Webster's chemistry editor sent a slip reading "D or d" for density which led to the word "Dord" entering the dictionary as an alternate name for density.
  • In 2008, Tim McLean man was brutally murdered on a bus and Greyhound Canada pulled a series of nationwide advertisements which included the slogan, "There's a reason you've never heard of bus rage."

August[edit]

Date
August 1
  • In 1958, Jean Berko Gleason published the Wug Test
  • The beloved Tombili, a street cat from Istanbul, died in 2016.
August 2
August 3
August 4
  • A fish called Benson, who was known for having been caught 63 times, died in 2009. She was known as "Britain's biggest and best-loved" carp and "the people's fish."
  • In 1997, Jeanne Calment died at age 122. She had signed a life estate contract on her apartment at age 90, and her landlord lost thousands of dollars. Calment commented on the situation by saying, "in life, one sometimes makes bad deals".
August 5
  • A $999.99 app called I Am Rich was released in 2008.
August 6
August 7
August 8
August 9
August 10
  • Sky King incident of 2018, in which a ground service agent with no piloting experience stole a plane from the Sea-Tac airport and flew it for more than an hour.
  • Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko became the first person to get married in space in 2003
  • Amou Haji, Iranian man known for refusing to bathe for more than 60 years, was born in 1928.
August 11
August 12
August 13
August 14
  • The Beaver drop program began in 1948. Dozens of beavers parachuted out of airplanes and landed in Idaho.
August 15
  • penguin Nils Olav was knighted in 2008
  • Wow! signal, which bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin, was spotted by a radio telescope in 1977.
August 16
August 17
  • When a tree fell on her house in 1960, an Arizona woman named Betty Pemrose brought about a lawsuit against God.
  • Toyohiro Akiyama was selected for spaceflight in 1989. "Akiyama was not a trained astronaut, scientist nor engineer. He was described as the first antihero in space as a result. During training, he quit smoking cigarettes, having previously smoked four packs a day. Before liftoff, when asked what he looked forward to most upon his return to Earth, he said "I can't wait to have a smoke"."
August 18
  • In 2020, Ben Shapiro reacted to WAP.
  • Korean Axe Murder incident of 1976. Soldiers from the US and South Korea chopped down a tree and North Korea retaliated by chopping up the soldiers.
August 19
August 20
August 21
August 22
  • Bubba the fish, a Chicago grouper who was the first fish to undergo chemotherapy, died in 2006.
August 23
August 24
  • In the Egyptian Graffito of Esmet-Akhom from the year 394, a man expressed home that his inscription will last "for all time and eternity"
August 25
  • Great Moon Hoax. In 1835, a New York newspaper launched a series of made-up articles about the supposed discovery of civilization on the Moon
  • Reddit exposé on Scots Wikipedia in 2020.
  • In 2010 Filair Let L-410 crash, a passenger smuggled a crocodile aboard and it escaped mid-flight causing panicked passengers to unbalance the plane.
August 26
August 27
  • Pascal-B nuclear test of 1956, the one that was 50,000 times more powerful than expected and shot the manhole cover in the air.
  • In 1896, the Anglo-Zanzibar war started and ended on this day. It was the shortest war ever.
  • Mars hoax, an email chain lie that spread in 2003 and said that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003
August 28
August 29
  • Following the hurricane on this day in 2005, Katrina refrigerators were turned into public art.
  • Tom Scott's emoji-only social media "Emojli" launched in 2014.
August 30
August 31
  • In 2009, a guy got a DUI from drunk-driving a motorized recliner.
  • In 1924, the Pennsylvania governor's dog Pep had his mugshot and pawprints taken at the Eastern State Penitentiary after he was falsely accused of murdering a cat.

September[edit]

No date: "When campaigning for a second term in office, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing, which has been noted as "the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection." - Third derivative article

Date
September 1
September 2
September 3
  • In 1967 on the day known as Dagen H, Sweden changed its traffic direction
  • In 2015, the website Pudim.br, which only contained a photo of pudding, was hacked by the Islamic State.
September 4
September 5
  • The organ concert As Slow as Possible began in 2001. If all goes as planned, it'll continue until 2640.
September 6
September 7
September 8
September 9
  • In 1981, the Reagan administration recommended school lunch administrators stretch their interpretation of the word "vegetable" to include things like relish and ketchup as vegetable.
September 10
  • Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Summer Olympics marathon barefoot
  • George Carlin recorded “I Kinda Like it When A Lot of People Die” in 2001 (set includes reference to Osama bin Laden and an exploding airplane)
  • In 1969, Yoko Ono held the first and only showing of the film “Self Portrait”, a 42-minute shot of John Lennon’s penis
September 11
September 12
September 13
September 14
September 15
  • In New York City in 1922, people started an eight-day riot all because men were wearing straw hats later than the acceptable date of September 15. Straw Hat Riot
  • In 1896, a bunch of people went to Texas to watch the Crash at Crush, two trains crashing head-on.
September 16
September 17
September 18
September 19
September 20
September 21
September 22
September 23
September 24
September 25
  • Meow the Jewels album was released in 2015, identical to the original recordings except for all instrumentals being replaced with sounds of cats.
  • 9/26 is the 269th day of year. Is this a fun fact? I don't know.
September 26
September 27
  • In Balloonfest 86, 1.5 million balloons were released in Cleveland to set a world record. But the plan backfired horribly.
September 28
  • An 88-year old died in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, allegedly as a result of nursing technicians injecting soup through her intravenous drip instead of her feeding tube.
September 29
September 30

October[edit]

Date
October 1
  • In 2016, a researcher published a paper that found that 70% of Big Thunder Mountain riders passed their kidney stones.
October 2
October 3
  • In 1900, a woman named Margaret Abbott who didn't know she was competing won the Olympic golf tournament.
October 4
  • In 2007, an Ig Nobel prize was awarded to The Air Force Wright Laboratory for instigating research into a chemical weapon called the "Gay Bomb" to make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other
  • Smoot Celebration Day
  • First baby Snoopy appeared in 1950.
October 5
October 6
  • On its first day in 1909, the brand-new Vancouver ambulance ran over a pedestrian. Its first job was taking that person to the hospital.
October 7
October 8
October 9
  • In 1992, a Peekskill meteorite landed directly on the parked 1980 Chevy Malibu of a 17 year old in New York.
October 10
October 11
October 12
  • In 2020, a paleontology conference's word filtering system banned the word "bone", an instance of the Scunthorpe problem.
  • In 1960, Nikita Krushchev banged his shoe on his desk at the United Nations, a moment remembered as the shoe-banging incident)
October 13
  • In 2013, a write-in candidate named Santa Claus won a seat on the city council in North Pole, Alaska. During his term, he advocated for marijuana dispensaries.
October 14
October 15
October 16
October 17
October 18
October 19
October 20
  • In 1986, Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashed after a pilot bet that he could land it blind (he couldn’t).
October 21
  • In 1988, a poodle named Cachy fell 13 floors and hit 75-year-old Marta Espina, killing both instantly. A woman who came to see the incident was fatally hit by a bus. An unidentified man who witnessed her death had a heart attack and died on his way to the hospital
October 22
October 23
October 24
  • In 1968, the FDA banned LSD
  • In 1852, Charles Darwin, who is six years into an exhaustive eight-year study of barnacles, writes to a friend that "I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before."[4]
October 25
  • Microwave was first commercially sold in 1955 for $1295, weighing 750 pounds, requiring plumbing since it needed to be water cooled
  • In 1999, Kasparov took on the world in chess and won
  • In 1964, Jim "Wrong Way" Marshall, the defensive end of Minnesota Vikings picked up a fumbled ball and ran 66 yards the wrong way to his own end zone.
  • The world wonders incident of 1944, where a pilot interpreted the cryptography padding as a sarcastic remark and locked himself in a closet. "I was stunned as if I had been struck in the face... I snatched off my cap, threw it on the deck, and shouted something I am ashamed to remember", letting out an anguished sob.
October 26
October 27
October 28
  • In 1982, the Cow Tools cartoon ran in syndicated newspapers.
  • Rahul Ligma, ficitonal ex-employee of Twitter, made headlines in 2022.
October 29
October 30
October 31
  • In 2013, Cards against Humanity purchased Hawaii 2
  • Wadsworth hid the charter of the Connecticut Colony inside an oak tree to prevent his enemy from seizing it and consolidating Connecticut into the Dominion of New England
  • Charles Vance Millar died in 1926 and left an insane will.

November[edit]

Date
November 1
November 2
  • Emu War began in 1932
  • Thomas Midgley, Jr., the guy who invented CFCs and leaded gasoline, died in 1955 of his own invention — but not the either of the ones that were known for killing people.
  • The Dakotas became states in 1889 and no one knows which one was first.
November 3
November 4
  • In 2017, the nonexistant Shed at Dulwich took the number one spot on the London TripAdvisor restaurant list.
November 5
  • John Wilson elected state senator in Texas despite having been dead for months.
November 6
  • In 2012 Barack Obama announced plans to perform Gangnam Style privately for his wife. We have no updates on how it went.
November 7
November 8
  • In 1973, the dead Tree of Ténéré was moved to museum. Previously it was hit by a car despite being the only tree for 400 km.
  • For a decade, Jennifer Pan deceived her parents into believing that she was a successful pharmacist, but she had not graduated high school. When her lies unraveled, she arranged for her parents' murder on this date in 2010.
November 9
November 10
  • In 2010, a Garfield controversy ensued when the comic mocked veterans on Veterans Day
  • In 2007, King Juan Carlos I of Spain said "why don't you shut up?" to the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez (¿Por qué no te callas?)
November 11
November 12
November 13
November 14
  • The 2005 Domino Day sparrow flew into a building in the Netherlands and toppled over 23,000 of dominos. The bird was shot and killed, which inspired huge backlash.
November 15
  • The first Mothman sighting occurred in 1966
November 16
November 17
  • Emperor Charles the Fat was deposed by the Frankish magnates in an assembly at Frankfurt, 887
  • In 1994, an NFL game (now known as the Heidi Game) switched to a movie called Heidi during the final moments of the game, enraging the nation.
November 18
November 19
November 20
November 21
November 22
November 23
November 24
November 25
November 26
November 27
  • During the Berners Street hoax in 1810, young troublemakers requested hundreds of deliveries to one random house in London.
  • In 2020, far-right Hungarian politician József Szájer was arrested while fleeing from a 25-man orgy.
November 28
November 29
November 30
  • In 1954, a meteor struck a woman who was napping. She walked away with only bruises.

December[edit]

Misc:

  • Norwegian butter crisis, 2011
  • New Zealanders celebrate Crate Day on the first Saturday of December (it involves finishing a crate of twelve 745ml beer bottles between 12pm until midnight)
Date
December 1
December 2
December 3
  • In 1992, a 22-year-old British programmer named Neil Papworth sent the first text message, which said “Merry Christmas.”
December 4
December 5
December 6
  • The TV show Mythbusters accidentally shot a cannonball into someone's house.
December 7
December 8
  • Amanda McKittrick Ros, a writer and poet infamous for her horribly ornate prose and poetry, was born in Ireland in 1860.
December 9
December 10
December 11
  • Dash for Cash, bizarre media event which teachers grabbed bills, occurred in 2021.
December 12
December 13
December 14
December 15
December 16
  • The Flag of Nepal, complete with bizarre mathematical dimensions, was adopted in 1962
  • Pokemon episode aired for the first and only time in Japan in 1997. It caused seizures hundreds of children.
  • In 1983, Kary Mullis invented the PCR technique. He said in his Nobel Prize lecture that the breakthrough did not make up for his girlfriend breaking up with him: "I was sagging as I walked out to my little silver Honda Civic. Neither [assistant] Fred, empty Beck's bottles, nor the sweet smell of the dawn of the age of PCR could replace Jenny. I was lonesome."
December 17
December 18
  • Teruo Nakamura, a soldier of imperial Japan, is arrested in an Indonesian forest in 1974, after hiding without surrendering for 29 years after World War II ended
December 19
December 20
December 21
December 22
December 23
  • Cocaine bear was discovered in 1985 with a stomach "literally packed to the brim with cocaine"
  • Non-commercial Christmas alternative Festivus
December 24
December 25
December 26
  • Soviet Union dissolved while Russian cosmonot Sergei Krikalev was in orbit in 1991
December 27
December 28
  • The Tay Bridge disaster occurred in Dundee in 1879, inspiring one of the worst poems the world has ever seen.
December 29
December 30
December 31
  1. ^ "Longest marriage | Guinness World Records". web.archive.org. 2019-07-14. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  2. ^ "In 'Disguise'..." The Record. 2 September 2001. p. 68. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  3. ^ Feldman, Brian (9 September 2021). "At The Turtle Club In The Shadow Of 9/11 | Defector". Defector.com. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  4. ^ Darwin, Charles (24 October 1852). "To W. D. Fox 24 [October 1852]". Darwin Correspondence Project. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
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