National (whatever) Day

21

There is a National A-Holes Day: February 27 (urban dictionary).

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22

My FirstDogOnTheMoon calendar shows February 27 as Polar Bear Day :grin:

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23

February 29, 2024 :

Leap Year, a day added every four years to keep in sync with the seasonal calendar.

National Time Refund Year: claim the day as a bonus to do as you please
with the extra time.

Bachelor’s Day: a reversal of the marriage proposal tradition, dates back centuries, it’s a lady’s privilege to propose marriage to a man on this day.

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24

Mostly, but not always. A niggly issue that had to be dealt with for dates leading up to the Y2K bug problem. Probably largely forgotten now.

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25

The exceptions are those years that are multiples of 100 but not multiples of 400. 1900 wasn’t a leap year, and 2100 won’t be, either, but Y2K was. For Y2K, most people knew the “multiple of 100” rule but had to be reminded of the “multiple of 400” rule.

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26

Yep. It was astonishing how many date calculation routines we found in computer systems that seemed clueless of a leap year system implemented in 1582. The Gregorian calendar.

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27

And so many of those systems had no idea that a year could exceed 99, anyway 
 :wink:

28

A fascinating story for another time and another topic. To avoid getting off this topic.

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29

March 8th

International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women’s achievements or rally for women’s equality.

Marked annually on March 8th, IWD is one of the most important days of the year to:

  • celebrate women’s achievements
  • educate and awareness raise about women’s equality
  • call for positive change advancing women
  • lobby for accelerated gender parity
  • fundraise for women-focused charities

Everyone, everywhere can play a part in helping forge gender equality. From a wide range of IWD campaigns, events, rallies, lobbying, and performances - to festivals, parties, fun runs, and celebrations - all IWD activity is valid. That’s what makes IWD so inclusive.

So make IWD your day and do what you can, in your own way, to help forge a gender equal world.

(From: internationalwomensday.com)

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30

Apparently, according to my local MP, today is National Potato Chip Day. Cruel.

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31

15th March 2024 ‘World Consumer Rights Day’.

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32

Coinciding with the World Consumer Rights is the annual event, a memorial lecture, honouring Ruby Hutchison the founder of the Australian Consumer’s Association (we know as Choice).

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33

Yeah, lazy way of trying to develop some connection with your voters.

34

First of April: Fools’ Day. A celebration of foolishness.

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35

Once upon a time, the ABC used to play an April Fool’s Day prank every year. I’m not sure when they became too staid to continue that. An ABC prank I remember from the days of Radio and TV Licences: a solemn report of a new technology that had been added to radio transmission towers, which would detect the use of radio receivers. It warned people not to turn on their radios if they didn’t have a radio licence, or they’d soon have a visit from the radio licence police 
 :rofl:

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36

My favourite from another serious journal was from Scientific American, back when the thick glossy magazine was the only format. This was before computers and devices were ubiquitous.

The article was about an amazing archaeological discover, I think it was from Pompeii or somewhere similar. They had discovered a very complex mess of frames and pulleys and the remnants of rope. The ropes were connected in various ways and could move wooden beads, pull other ropes etc. This analog computer was carbon dated to 100 BC and reference was made to the Antikythera machine as another example. The artwork of the reconstructed machine was exceptional with cutaways and call outs to explain the details, the text had footnotes, citations, the full catastrophe. I don’t recall if they owned up in the next edition or not.

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37

Auspiciously 1st April 1976 - date Apple founded by Jobs and Wozniak. :wink:

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38

I remember some of the B&W ABC April Fool’s News. This illustrates the Country/City divide, when they announced a shortage of spaghetti due to the failure of spaghetti trees - showing dormant trees with limp spaghetti hanging off them. People believed them!

The other, which greatly amused my electrician father, was an announcement that they were reversing the polarity and now you would have to put your cold stuff in the oven and heat dinner in the fridge.

Somewhere (I hope) there’s an archive, so we can laugh again.

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