Holidays Calendar for August 7, 2017

Battle of Boyacá Day is annually observed in Colombia on August 7. This public holiday marks the day, when Colombia (then New Granada) gained definitive independence from Spain.

Independence Day is the national holiday of Ivory Coast. It is celebrated on August 7, commemorating the day in 1960 when the country declared its independence from France.

The first Monday in August is Civic Holiday in most Canadian provinces. This holiday is known under different names in many provinces and municipalities.

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Labor Day is one of the public holidays in Samoa. It's annually observed on the first Monday in August.

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Emancipation Day is a common holiday for the former colonies of Great Britain and Guyana. This day is celebrated on the first Monday in August. At some point the holiday became the first day of the traditional Carnival and adopted the name of August Monday.

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People across Zambia celebrate Farmers' Day on the first Monday in August. Zambians depend on farming very much, that is why this holiday praises their work.

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The first Monday in August is National Childrens' Day in Tuvalu. This public holiday is called in Tuvalu Aso Tamaliki.

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Youth Day is a public holiday in Kiribati. Celebration of this holiday is aimed to promote healthy lifestyle among youth and children of Kiribati.

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Iceland annually celebrates Commerce Day on the first Monday in August. This holiday appeared in 1894, and the first observation took place in Reykjavik.

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Raksha Bandhan is an ancient Hindu festival, that celebrates love between sisters and brothers. The date of the festival falls on the full moon of Shravana month of the Hindu lunisolar calendar. This festival is celebrated in India and Nepal, as well as in other countries, where Hindus live.

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Tu b'Av is a minor Jewish holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Av. In modern Israel it has become a holiday of love, somewhat similar to Valentine's Day.

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Aged Care Employee Day in Australia is observed on August 7. It is the holiday of all aged care professionals who work in nursing homes and other residential aged care institutions, as well as provide in-home aged care services.

Although many people associate the word “Assyrian” with an ancient empire in Mesopotamia, Assyrians are not an extinct people. The present-day Assyrians inhabit parts of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria, and also have a large diaspora across the world. Throughout the XX century they have been victims of massacres and genocide. To commemorate their fallen brothers and sisters, Assyrians observe Martyrs Day on August 7.

National Purple Heart Day, also known as Purple Heart Day, Purple Heart Appreciation Day and Purple Heart Recognition Day, is observed in the United States every year. It is dedicated to a U.S. military decoration awarded to those who were wounded or killed while serving.

August 7 is National Raspberries N' Cream Day in the United States. This food holiday is devoted to the delightful combination of ripe, juicy, tender raspberries and heavy, delicious cream.

If you’re a mythology fan, don’t miss your chance to celebrate National Sea Serpent Day on August 7. It commemorates a famous sea serpent sighting by the crew of HMS Daedalus that occurred in August 1868.

National Lighthouse Day is celebrated annually on August 7. It was created by the United States Congress in 1989 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of an act that provided for the establishment and maintenance of lighthouses, beacons, buoys and public piers.

 

This Day in History

  • 2005 Died: Peter Jennings, Canadian-American journalist and author, the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 till his death. Although he dropped out the high school, he managed to become one of the American television's most prominent journalists.
  • 1998 The United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya were bombed. Approximately 212 people were killed.
  • 1987 Died: Camille Chamoun, Lebanese politician, President of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958. He is regarded as one of the main Christian leaders during most of the Lebanese Civil War.
  • 1975 Born: Charlize Theron, South African and American actress and producer. She first major role was in film The Devil's Advocate, then other films followed, like Mighty Joe Young, The Cider House Rules, Monster, that brought her international acclaim.
  • 1974 Philippe Petit performed a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The wire was stretched at height of 1,368 ft (417 m).
  • 1966 Born: Jimmy Wales, American businessman, best known as one of the co-founders of Wikipedia.
  • 1962 Born: Bruno Pelletier, Canadian singer and actor, best known for roles in rock operas Starmania, Notre-Dame de Paris and musical Dracula - Entre l'amour et la mort.
  • 1960 Born: David Duchovny, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, best known to audience as FBI Agent Fox Mulder on the science fiction series The X-Files. His other famous role is as Hank Moody, an alcoholic and drug-abusing novelist on series Californication.
  • 1959 American satellite Explorer 6 launched from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida. His mission ended on October 6, 1959, but it let make the first pictures of the planet from space.
  • 1947 Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki smashed into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands. The journey lasted 101 days and the raft swam 4,300 mi (7,000 km) across the Pacific Ocean. This attempt to swim across the ocean was made to prove, that per-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.
  • 1942 The Battle of Guadalcanal began. The battle became the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
  • 1941 Died: Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate, the first non-European to win this award, in 1913. Also his poetry is very popular in Bengal, he is largely unknown in other countries.
  • 1933 Died: Elinor Ostrom, American economist and academic. Her greatest achievement of lifetime was Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic, that she shared with Oliver Williamson for analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.
  • 1933 The Iraqi government ordered a slaughter of over 3,000 Assyrians. The slaughter took place in 63 villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts in Iraq.
  • 1912 Died: François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss scientist, pioneering the study of lakes. He is the founder of limnology, the study of inland waters.
  • 1909 Alice Huyler Ramsey and her three friends became the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip. Their trip started in New York and finished in Florida.
  • 1904 Born: Ralph Bunche, American political scientist, academic, and diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his late 1940s mediation in Israel.
  • 1877 Born: Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater, a 10-time World Figure Skating Champion. He shares this record with Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie and Russian figure skater Irina Rodnina, that is still not broken.
  • 1876 Born: Mata Hari, Dutch dancer, who was convicted of being a spy. She was executed by firing squad in France under charges of espionage for Germany during WWI.
  • 1864 Died: Li Xiucheng, Chinese general, known as the Loyal King. He led the Taiping Rebellion forces to several victories and is considered to be the most important military leader of his time. He was executed after the battle in Nanjing.
  • 1860 Born: Alan Leo, English astrologer and author, widely considered as the father of modern astrology. His works stimulated a revival of astrology in Europe after its decline in the 17th century.
  • 1858 The first game of the Australian football was played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.
  • 1855 Died: Mariano Arista, Mexican general and politician, President of Mexico. He served in office from January 15, 1851 to January 6, 1853. Short presidency was caused by a revolt and his exile from the country.
  • 1848 Died: Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Swedish chemist, considered to be one of the fathers of modern chemistry. He is also known for discovery and isolation of new elements cerium and thorium.
  • 1834 Died: Joseph Marie Jacquard, French weaver and inventor, important figure in development of the earliest programmable loom (now known as the Jacquard loom).
  • 1782 George Washington, then-delegate to the First Continental Congress from Virginia, ordered creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. The Badge was later renamed to more poetic Purple Heart.
  • 1714 The Battle of Gangut was fought between the Swedish Army and Imperial Russian Navy during the Great Northern War. This was the first important victory of the Russian fleet.
  • 1635 Died: Friedrich Spee, German poet, most notable as the early opponent of trials of witchcraft. He insisted that torturing is not a good way of obtaining truth from someone, who's undergoing painful questioning.
  • 1616 Died: Vincenzo Scamozzi, Italian architect of Renaissance, known as the father of neo-classicism.
  • 1571 Born: Thomas Lupo, English viol player and composer, one of the principal developers of the repertory for viol consort.