Holidays Calendar for February 9, 2016

February 9 is St. Maroun's Day in Lebanon. He is the patron saint of Lebanon, that is why this feast is a public holiday in the country.

National Sports Day is a public holiday in Qatar celebrated on Tuesday in the second week of February each year. It was first held in 2012.

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Saint Apollonia is the patroness of dentistry and all those who suffer from toothache or any kind of dental problems. Christians celebrate the feast day of St. Apollonia annually on February 9.

Shrove (Fat) Tuesday, also known by its French name Mardi Gras, is the culmination of the Carnival season in many countries across the world. Occurring on the day immediately preceding Ash Wednesday, it is the last night of eating fatty foods before the long-lasting Lenten season that ends before Easter.

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Civil Aviation Day is observed in Russia annually on February 9. This professional day was officially created in 2013, although it had been unofficially celebrated much longer.

National Press Day (Hari Pers Nasional) is celebrated in Indonesia on February 9 every year. It was inaugurated in 1985 to commemorate the founding anniversary of the Indonesian Journalists Association (Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia, PWI).

Mandaluyong Liberation and Cityhood Day (Araw ng Liberasyon at Pagkalungsod ng Mandaluyong) is a local holiday observed in the Philippine city of Mandaluyong to commemorate its liberation from occupation in 1945 and its elevation to cityhood in 1994.

Many dishes of American Jewish cuisine are popular among people of different ethnic backgrounds thanks to the abundance of Jewish delis in some American cities. For example, bagel and lox is both a staple of Jewish cuisine and part of American culture; there’s even a National Bagel and Lox Day celebrated on February 9.

Pizza is one of the most popular foods in the world, so it is not surprising that it has its own holiday, and even more than one. National Pizza Day is celebrated annually on February 9, and Google pays tribute to pizza with its Google Doodle on December 6.

National Toothache Day is observed annually on February 9. Of course, toothache isn’t something that deserves to be celebrated, but the goal of the observance isn’t to celebrate; it is meant to remind people about the importance of dental health and warn them not to take toothache lightly.

Many Christians observe Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent. Even those who do not fast often celebrate the day by eating pancakes or crêpes. Because of this, Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and some other countries.

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This Day in History

  • 2021 Died: Chick Corea, American jazz composer, keyboardist, bandleader and occasional percussionist. He won 23 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times.
  • 2018 The opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics was held at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium in Pyeongchang, South Korea
  • 2010 Died: Walter Frederick Morrison, American toymaker and inventor. He is best known for inventing the Frisbee.
  • 2005 Died: Robert Kearns, American engineer, best known for the invention of the windscreen wiper system that has been used on most automobiles from 1969 to the present.
  • 2001 Died: Herbert A. Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate who is considered one of the most influential social scientists of the 20th century.
  • 2001 The American submarine USS Greeneville by accident struck and sank the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel. 9 of her crew members, including 4 high school students, were killed.
  • 1996 The Provisional Irish Republican Army declared the end to its 17-month ceasefire and detonated a bomb in London's Canary Wharf. Although the warning was sent 90 minutes beforehand, 2 were killed. The bomb caused an estimated £100 million worth of damage.
  • 1994 Died: Howard Martin Temin, American geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate for his discovery of reverse transcriptase, an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA from an RNA template.
  • 1989 Died: Osamu Tezuka, Japanese illustrator, animator, and producer, generally referred as "the father or manga", "the god of comics" and "the godfather of anime". He is considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney.
  • 1987 Born: Rose Leslie, Scottish actress known for her roles as Gwen Dawson on Downton Abbey, Ygritte on Game of Thrones, and Maia Rindell on The Good Fight.
  • 1987 Born: Michael B. Jordan, American actor and producer best known for his roles as Oscar Grant in Fruitvale Station, Adonis Creed in Creed, and Erik Killmonger in Black Panther.
  • 1981 Died: Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist, credited for the popularization of rock and roll music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets.
  • 1981 Born: Tom Hiddleston, English actor who gained international fame portraying Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), starting with Thor in 2011.
  • 1976 Born: Charlie Day, American actor, best known for his role as Charlie Kelly on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He also appeared in Horrible Bosses, Pacific Rim and The Lego Movie.
  • 1969 Boeing 747 had its first test flight. The plane would enter into service almost a year later, on January 15, 1970.
  • 1965 A Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion became the first U.S. troop to be sent with a combat mission to South Vietnam.
  • 1959 The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.
  • 1957 Died: Miklós Horthy, Hungarian admiral, Regent of Hungary. Under the influence of Hitler's regime Horthy made Hungary enter World War II.
  • 1953 Born: Gabriel Rotello, American journalist and author, founder of OutWeek, an influential gay and lesbian weekly news magazine, published in New York from 1989 to 1991.
  • 1951 Died: Eddy Duchin, American pianist of the 1930s-1940s, famous for his engaging on-stage personality and elegant style.
  • 1945 A rare instance of submarine-to-submarine contact: during the Battle of the Atlantic HMS Venturer (British) sank U-864 (German) off the coast of Fedje, Norway.
  • 1943 Born: Joe Pesci, American actor and musicians whose accolades include an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award with nominations for three Golden Globe Awards.
  • 1940 Born: J. M. Coetzee, South African author, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate for his ability to portray the surprising involvement of the outsider in innumerable guises. Coetzee is also known for his critical works and translations from Dutch and Afrikaans.
  • 1934 The Balkan Entente was formed to maintain the geopolitical status quo in the region after World War I.
  • 1920 International diplomacy recognized Norwegian sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and designated it as demilitarized.
  • 1913 A group of meteors was visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America. This lead astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
  • 1910 Born: Jacques Monod, French biochemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine laureate for his discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis.
  • 1895 The game of volleyball was created by William G. Morgan. Originally named mintonette, it took some of its characteristics from handball and tennis.
  • 1874 Born: Amy Lowell, American poet who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Lowell was forgotten in the post-World War I years, but the women's movement in the 1970s brought her back to light.
  • 1867 Born: Sōseki Natsume, Japanese author, who is considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He is best known for novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat, and the unfinished novel Light and Darkness.
  • 1863 Born: Anthony Hope, English author and playwright, best remembered for two books: The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau. His works spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance.
  • 1846 Born: Wilhelm Maybach, German businessman, founder of Maybach, a German luxury car manufacturer that is today owned by Dailmer AG.
  • 1773 Born: William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, the 9th President of the United States. Harrison died from pneumonia on the 32nd day of his presidential office, serving the shortest tenure in the U.S. presidential history.
  • 1675 Died: Gerrit Douw, a Dutch Golden Age painter, noted for his trompe l'oeil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes.
  • 1619 Died: Lucilio Vanini, Italian philosopher, one of the first significant representatives of intellectual libertinism. He was among the first modern thinkers who viewed the universe as an entity governed by natural laws.