Holidays Calendar for April 8, 2016

The second Friday in April is a public holiday in Liberia known as Fast and Prayer Day. Although it is a legal holiday, its observance is not mandatory because the constitution of Liberia provides for freedom of religion.

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The Japanese annually celebrate Hana Matsuri, or the Flower Festival, on April 8. This festival is devoted to Buddha's Birthday.

April 8 the Roma around the world celebrate International Day of the Roma. This holiday was established in 1990.

International Pageant Day has been observed every April 8 since 2018. This holiday celebrates beauty pageants, as well as all women around the world who compete in them to win the coveted title and crown.

International Feng Shui Awareness Day is observed annually on April 8. It was created to educate the general public about the ancient Chinese traditional practice of feng shui and its modern applications.

April 8 is annual celebration of Day of Military Commissariat Employees in the Russian Federation and in the Republic of Belarus.

Employees of the Drug Control Authority of the Kyrgyz Republic observe their professional holiday, Drug Control Authority Workers' Day, on April 8. This is the holiday for those people who fight against the production and distribution of drugs in the country.

The anniversary of the Ministry of Defense in Thailand is celebrated on April 8. It was officially established by the government of Thailand on June 13, 1980, and the first celebration was held on April 8, 1981.

Economist Day is one of the official professional holidays observed in the Republic of Tajikistan. It is celebrated annually on April 8.

National Plitvice Lakes Day is a Croatian ecological observance held annually on April 8. It is dedicated to one of the country’s most impressive natural landmarks that was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1979, alongside the historical complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian and the Old City of Dubrovnik.

Russian Animation Day is an annual holiday celebrated on April 8. It commemorates the screening of the first Russian animated film, which took place in 1912.

The birthday of Sri Guru Nabha Dass Ji is one of the holidays celebrated in the Indian state of Punjab. It commemorates a Hindu saint and theologian who is best known as the author of the sacred poem titled the Bhaktamal.

Empanada is a Spanish pastry that has become popular in many cuisines around the world. Today, on April 8, we celebrate National Empanada Day, so let yourself indulge in delicious empanadas. You can even host an empanada cooking and tasting party because everything tastes better when shared with friends!

Draw a Bird Day is a special movement, that was born in Great Britain during the 1940s. This movement spread to the other countries and it became very popular.


This Day in History

  • 2013 Died: Margaret Thatcher, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. Thatcher was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and the only woman to have held the office.
  • 2010 Died: Malcolm McLaren, English singer-songwriter and fashion designer. He is best remembered as the manager of Sex Pistols.
  • 2005 Pope John Paul II was buried, six days after his death. Over 4 million people attended the funeral.
  • 1984 Died: Pyotr Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate for basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics.
  • 1981 Born: Taylor Kitsch, Canadian model and actor, best known for role as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and as Tim Riggins in the NBC TV series Friday Night Lights.
  • 1973 Died: Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor, one of the greatest and most influent artists of the 20th century. He was a co-founder of the Cubist movement, co-inventor of collage and helped to develop and explore wide variety of styles. His most famous works are The Young Ladies of Avignon and Guernica.
  • 1968 Died: Barbara Jane Harrison, English flight attendant, recipient of the George Cross for heroism in helping passengers to escape the burning plane BOAC Flight 712. The Barbara Harrison Prize was established in 1968 by the Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine.
  • 1966 Born: Robin Wright, American actress. She planed Kelly Capwell in Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1988. She also starred in Forrest Gump, Toys, Unbreakable, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
  • 1961 238 people were killed in a large explosion on board of the MV Dara, a Dubai based passenger liner, in Persian Gulf.
  • 1960 The Netherlands and West Germany singed an agreement to negotiate the return of German land annexed by the Dutch in return for 280 million German marks.
  • 1958 Died: Ethel Turner, Australian novelist ans children's literature writer. Her famous book Seven Little Australians is considered as a classic of Australian children's literature.
  • 1954 37 people died when a Royal Canadian Air Force Canadair Harvards collided over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
  • 1950 India and Pakistan signed the Liaquat-Nehru Pact, that allowed refugees to return unmolested to dispose of their property, abducted women and property were to be returned, forced conversions were unrecognized, and minority rights were confirmed.
  • 1941 Born: Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer and businesswoman. She is largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.
  • 1938 Born: Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 1997 - December 2006), and one of Noble Peace Prize laureates for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.
  • 1936 Died: Róbert Bárány, Austrian physician, Nobel Prize laureate for his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus.
  • 1931 Died: Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish poet, Nobel Prize laureate for highly symbolic poetry masquerading as regionalism. Karlfeldt is the only one posthumous winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in the prize's history.
  • 1919 Born: John Fante, American author, best known for his work Ask the Dust. The book was made into the same name movie in 2006. Fante is known as on the writers who portrayed the tough times faced by many writers in Los Angeles.
  • 1912 Born: Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater and actress, a three-times Olympic Champion, a ten-time World Champion (from 1927 to 1936) and a six-time European Champion. She was the winner of more Olympic and World titles, than any other ladies' figure skater.
  • 1911 Born: Melvin Calvin, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate for discovery Calvin cycle, that showed that sunlight acts on the chlorophyll in a plant to fuel the manufacturing of organic compounds, rather than on carbon dioxide, as it was previously believed.
  • 1911 Superconductivity, a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic fields, was discovered by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes.
  • 1904 Born: John Hicks, English economist, Nobel Prize laureate for pioneering contributions to general equilibrium theory and welfare theory.
  • 1904 Longacre Square was renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
  • 1904 The Entente cordiale was signed by the French Third Republic, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
  • 1886 The first Irish Home Rule Bill was introduced by William Ewart Gladstone into the British House of Commons.
  • 1861 Died: Elisha Otis, American businessman, founder of the Otis Elevator Company. One of his greatest inventions was safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails.
  • 1848 Died: Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer. Donizetti was one of the leading Italian composers of the bel canto opera style during the fifty years of the 19th century.
  • 1820 The Venus de Milo, an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greece, was discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.
  • 1818 Born: August Wilhelm von Hofmann, an outstanding German chemist. He made considerable contributions to organic chemistry and discovered formaldehyde, hydrazobenzene, the isonitriles, and allyl alcohol.
  • 1692 Born: Giuseppe Tartini, Italian violinist and composer, best remembered for Devil's Trill Sonata, a solo violin sonata that requires number of technically demanding double stop trills. This sonata is difficult to play even by modern standards.