Holidays Calendar for July 16, 2020

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is annually celebrated in Chile on July 16. This public holiday was established in 2007 and it replaced an official holiday of Corpus Christi.

Manu'a Cession Day is a governmental holiday in American Samoa. It's annually observed on July 16 to celebrate the day, when the Manu'a islands were ceded to the United States.

Gergetoba (or Day of Spiritual Love) is one of the oldest Christian holidays in Georgia. It's annually observed on July 16. The holiday was forgotten for many years, till it was revived by Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II.

International Drag Day is an annual event held on July 16. It was created to celebrate the drag culture around the world and to give it more exposure, highlighting its transition from marginalized to mainstream.

World Snake Day is observed annually on July 16. It was created to raise awareness about the thousands of snake species that exist across the globe, debunk common misconceptions about snakes, and highlight the importance of snake conservation.

Accountant Day is a professional observance that has an official status in some countries, while in other countries it’s celebrated unofficially. Ukraine belongs to the former category; here, this professional day is name Accountant and Auditor Day. It has been officially celebrated since 2004.

Engineer’s Day is a professional holiday observed in a number of countries around the world on various dates of the year. In Honduras, for example, it is celebrated on July 16.

National Personal Chef Day is celebrated in the United States every July 16. It was created to recognize the hard work of personal chefs across the nation and educate the general public on the difference between a personal chef and a private chef.

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorating the genocide that occurred during the Second World War. In addition, some countries whose Jewish population suffered huge losses during the war also observe their own national remembrance days. For example, Holocaust Remembrance Day in France is observed on July 16.

Although the constitutional capital of the Plurinational State of Bolivia is Sucre, the country’s de facto national capital is La Paz. On July 16 every year, its residents celebrate La Paz Day.

Ozamiz City Charter Day (Araw ng Pribilehiyo ng Lungsod ng Ozamiz) is a special non-working holiday in the city of Ozamiz, Misamis Occidental, Philippines. It is celebrated on July 16 to commemorate the day when Ozamiz was granted cityhood.

July 16 is National Corn Fritter Day. Corn fritters are savory snacks that originated in the Southern United States.

Guinea pigs are among the most popular family pets, but a lot of people feel they are still underappreciated compared to, say, cats, dogs or hamsters. Guinea Pig Appreciation Day is observed every July 16 to fix this injustice.

Spinach is so nutritious and popular that it has not one, but two holidays dedicated to it: National Spinach Day is celebrated on March 26 and Fresh Spinach Day is observed on July 16.

If you’re a fan of cherries (and who isn’t, really), don’t forget to celebrate National Cherry Day on July 16. This delicious holiday originated in the United Kingdom but has since been adopted by other countries such as the United States.

National DRESS Syndrome Day is observed annually on July 16. It was created to raise awareness of a rare reaction to certain medications characterized by a skin rash, fever, swollen lymph nodes and blood abnormalities.


This Day in History

  • 2023 Died: Kevin Mitnick, American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker. He is best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes.
  • 2014 Died: Karl Albrecht, German businessman, a co-founder of the supermarket chain Aldi (with his brother Theo). The chain covers over 9,000 stores in 18 countries around the world.
  • 2012 Died: Jon Lord, English keyboard player and songwriter, best known for his pioneering work in fusing rock with classical or baroque forms. He founded the band Deep Purple and was its leader until 1970.
  • 2012 Died: Stephen Covey, American businessman, educator and author, best known for his books The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The 8th Habit, and The Leader in Me.
  • 2008 The milk scandal in China: an estimated 300,000 infants in Gansu Province were diagnosed with kidney stones caused by tainted milk powder.
  • 1999 Died: John F. Kennedy Jr., American lawyer and publisher, the only surviving son of President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
  • 1994 Died: Julian Schwinger, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate. He is best known for developing a relativistically invariant perturbation theory.
  • 1991 Born: Alexandra Shipp, American actress whose major credits include Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, the X-Men franchise, Love, Simon, and tick, tick... BOOM!
  • 1990 The Luzon earthquake struck the Philippines with an intensity of 7.7, affecting Benguet, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, La Union, Aurora, Bataan, Zambales and Tarlac.
  • 1985 Born: Rosa Salazar, American actress. She made her breakthrough as the title character of the film Alita: Battle Angel and is known for starring in the series Brand New Cherry Flavor.
  • 1985 Died: Heinrich Böll, German author. Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers and was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1972.
  • 1985 Died: Wayne King, American saxophonist, songwriter, and bandleader, sometimes referred to as the Waltz King because many of his most popular music works were waltzes.
  • 1979 Born: Jayma Mays, American actress. She is known for playing Emma Pillsbury in the musical series Glee and for her starring roles in the films Red Eye, Paul Blart: Mall Cop and The Smurfs.
  • 1979 Saddam Hussein replaced former Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, becoming the 5th President of Iraq. He served from 1979 to 2006.
  • 1968 Born: Larry Sanger, American Internet project developer, known as the co-founder of Wikipedia and the founder of Citizendium.
  • 1967 Born: Will Ferrell, American actor, producer, and screenwriter. He rose to fame during the mid 1990s as a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live.
  • 1965 The Mont Blanc Tunnel, linking France and Italy, was opened. The length of the tunnel is 11.611 km (7.215 mi); it is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.
  • 1963 Born: Phoebe Cates, America actress, model, entrepreneur, best known for her roles in several teen films, such as Gremlins and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
  • 1956 Born: Tony Kushner, American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage, he is most known for his seminal work Angels in America, which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.
  • 1951 The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.
  • 1948 The first hijacking of a commercial plane in history: the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane was stormed in the Pearl River Delta. The lone survivor was Huang Yu, the leader of the hijacking plot.
  • 1945 Manhattan Project: the USA successfully detonated a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The test marked the beginning of the Atomic Age.
  • 1942 13,152 Jews were arrested under the orders of the government of Vichy France. They were held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.
  • 1928 Born: Robert Sheckley, American writer, famous for his quick-witted short stories and novels. He was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards and was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
  • 1926 Born: Irwin Rose, American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation.
  • 1911 Born: Ginger Rogers, American actress, dancer and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Kitty Foyle.
  • 1907 Born: Barbara Stanwyck, American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic screen presence and versatility.
  • 1896 Died: Edmond de Goncourt, French critic and publisher, the founder of the Académie Goncourt. Many of his most famous works were created in collaboration with his brother Jules.
  • 1896 Born: Trygve Lie, Norwegian politician. He served as the 1st Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1940 to 1945.
  • 1888 Born: Frits Zernike, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate for the invention of the phase contrast microscope. This instrument allows the study of the internal cell structure without killing the cell.
  • 1882 Died: Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865 as the wife of Abraham Lincoln. She supported her husband throughout his presidency and witnessed his fatal shooting at Ford's Theater in Washington.
  • 1872 Born: Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer, the leader of Antarctic expedition that was first to reach the South Pole, and the leader of expedition that was first recognized without a dispute to have reached the North Pole.
  • 1747 Died: Giuseppe Crespi, Italian painter of the late Baroque period, a representative of the Bolognese School. He is best known for his series of canvases The Seven Sacraments.
  • 1723 Born: Joshua Reynolds, English painter, an influential figure in the 18th-century English painting. He founded the Royal Academy and was its first president.
  • 1661 The Swedish bank Stockholms Banco issued the first banknotes in Europe.
  • 1054 Three Roman legates formally broke relations between Western and Eastern Christian Churches. This event is frequently described as the start of the East–West Schism.