Holidays Calendar for January 8, 2018
Birthday of Eugenio María de Hostos is a public holiday in Puerto Rico. This holiday originally was celebrated on January 11, but recently it's been held on the second Monday of January.
Coming of Age Day (Seijin no Hi) is an important Japanese holiday that celebrates young people who have turned or will turn 20 (the age of majority in Japan) between April 2 of the previous year and April 1 of the current one.
Some people find building a career hard even when they have great professional skills and work ethics. The thing is, there is so much more to having a successful career path than simply being good at your job. Sometimes it takes a career coach to help a person realize their full potential and become successful. To recognize the importance of career coaches, January 8 has been declared National Career Coach Day.
January 8 is a special day for Greek women as far as it is Yinekokratia, the feast of all women. This holiday has got a long story and it stems from ancient times when matriarchy was observed.
Anniversaries and Memorial Days →
Northern Mariana Islands
Commonwealth Day in the Northern Mariana Islands
January 8 is the day for the annual celebration of Commonwealth Day in the Northern Mariana Islands.
January 8 is a very important holiday in North Korea. This is the day of Kim Jong-un's Birthday, the current leader of the country.
You may not know it, but January 8 is National English Toffee Day. If you like this treat or candy, then why don't you celebrate this day?
January 8 is the perfect day to proudly wear argyle socks or your favorite argyle sweater vest because it is National Argyle Day. This informal holiday was created to celebrate a popular pattern that originated in Scotland.
When was the last time you cleaned and organized your workspace? If you can’t remember, you absolutely need to celebrate National Clean Your Desk Day that is observed on the second Monday of January every year.
Typing Day, also referred to as World Typing Day or International Typing Day, is an annual event that originated in Malaysia in 2011. It is held on January 8.
Marrow Donor Day in Armenia is celebrated annually on January 8. It is dedicated to all the people who voluntarily donate their blood for HLA testing, register as potential bone marrow donors, and donate their hematopoietic stem cells if they turn out a match for a potential recipient.
National Gluten-Free Day is observed annually on the second Monday of January. It was created to raise awareness of celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, wheat allergy, gluten ataxia, and other disorders that cause people to switch to a gluten-free diet.
Festivals on January 8, 2018
- Carnival of Limoux in Limoux, France
- Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival in Hwacheon, South Korea
- Sydney Festival in Sydney, Australia
- Carnival in French Guiana in Cayenne, French Guiana
- Kastoria Ragoutsaria Carnival in Kastoria, Greece
- Carnival in Guadeloupe in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe
- Dolomiti Balloonfestival in Toblach, Italy
- Aruban Carnival in Oranjestad, Aruba
- Gualeguaychú Carnival in Gualeguaychú, Argentina
- St. Louis Mardi Gras in St. Louis, USA
- New Orleans Mardi Gras in New Orleans, USA
- Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in Harbin, China
- Carnival of Putignano in Putignano, Italy
- Dubai Shopping Festival in Dubai, UAE
- TSB Festival of Lights in New Plymouth, New Zealand
This Day in History
- 2024 Died: Adan Canto, Mexican actor. He portrayed Sunspot in the superhero film X-Men: Days of Future Past, Paul Torres on The Following, and AJ Menendez on Blood & Oil.
- 2023 Following the defeat of then-president Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 Brazilian general election, a mob of Bolsonaro's supporters attacked federal government buildings in Brasília.
- 2020 Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps en route from Tehran to Kyiv shortly after takeoff. All nine members of the crew and 167 passengers died.
- 2013 Died: Jeanne Manford, American educator and activist. She is known for co-founding the support group organization PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
- 2004 Queen Elizabeth II christened the RMX Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built.
- 2003 Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashed near Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey. The entire crew and 70 of 75 passengers died.
- 2002 Died: Dave Thomas, American businessman and philanthropist. He founded Wendy's, a fast-food restaurant chain specializing in hamburgers.
- 2000 Born: Noah Cyrus, American actress and singer. Noah is known for her voice role in Ponyo. She is the youngest sister of Miley Cyrus.
- 1997 Died: Melvin Calvin, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate for discovering the Calvin cycle.
- 1996 An Antonov An-32 cargo aircraft crashed into a market in Kihshasa, Zaire. The crew of 6 survived the crash but 237 people were killed on the ground.
- 1991 Died: Steve Clark, English songwriter and the guitarist of the British hard rock band Def Leppard.
- 1989 British Midland Flight 92, Boeing 737-400, crashed into the M1 motorway. 47 of 126 people on board were killed.
- 1987 Born: Cynthia Erivo, English actress and singer. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple, which earned her a Tony Award in 2016.
- 1981 Born: Genevieve Padalecki, American actress. He is known her role as Kris Furillo on the TV seriesWildfire. She is married to Jared Padalecki.
- 1981 A local farmer reported a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France. This sighting is claimed to be the most carefully documented one of all the time.
- 1977 Born: Amber Benson, American actress and filmmaker. She is best known for her role as Tara Maclay on the supernatural drama television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- 1973 Watergate scandal: the trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Watergate hotel, Democratic Party headquarters, began.
- 1963 The first exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the U.S. was organized at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
- 1962 The Harmelen train disaster resulted in 93 deaths in the Netherlands.
- 1947 Born: David Bowie, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor who was a major figure in the world of popular music for over 40 years. He is known for his distinctive voice and recognized for his androgynous beauty.
- 1942 Born: Stephen Hawking, English physicist, cosmologist, and author. He was the first person who explained cosmology as a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He also achieved success in popular science.
- 1941 Died: Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English general. He is known as the founder of the Scout Movement and the first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association.
- 1938 Born: Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens, British sociologist. He is considered one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is known for his theory of structuration and holistic view of modern societies.
- 1935 Born: Lewis H. Lapham, American publisher. He was the editor of Harper's Magazine and later founded Lapham's Quarterly, a quarterly publication about literature and history.
- 1935 Born: Elvis Presley, American singer, guitarist, and actor. He is regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons and often called "the King of Rock and Roll".
- 1926 Born: Soupy Sales, American comedian and actor. He is best known for his children's show Lunch with Soupy Sales, a series of comedy sketches that often ended with Sales receiving pie in his face.
- 1902 Born: Carl Rogers, influential American psychologist and one of the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology.
- 1896 Died: Paul Verlaine, French poet. He is one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
- 1867 African Americans were granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
- 1835 The U.S. national debt was zero. It happened only once in the history of the country.
- 1825 Died: Eli Whitney, American inventor who invented the cotton gin, a mechanical device that removes seeds from cotton.
- 1824 Born: Wilkie Collins, English author and playwright. He is best known for his novels The Woman in White and The Moonstone that were adapted for screen in the US and UK.
- 1642 Died: Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. He is known for his contributions to observational astronomy and improvements to the telescope. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of science".
- 1337 Died: Giotto, Italian painter and architect. He is one of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.
- 1324 Died: Marco Polo, Italian merchant and traveler. His travels were recorded in the Book of the Marvels of the World (also known as The Travels of Marco Polo). This book introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China.