Holidays Calendar for August 16, 2020
The Gabonese Republic celebrates its Independence Day on August 17. This national holiday commemorates the independence of Gabon from France in 1960. The festivities usually last for two days, August 16 and 17.
Restoration Day is a public holiday in the Dominican Republic celebrated on August 16. It commemorates the beginning of the Dominican Restoration War in 1863. The war resulted in the restoration of the country's independence.
Parsis in India celebrate their New Year holiday in mid-August. In the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, where most Indian Parsis live, the Parsi New Year is an official state holiday.
National Airborne Day is a special day designated to honor the U.S. Airborne Forces and the first parachute jump of 48 volunteer members of the U.S. Army Parachute Test Platoon on August 16, 1940. This day is annually observed on August 16.
Russia and Belarus celebrate Air Force Day on the third Sunday in August each year. This holiday was established in the USSR decades ago, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union only Belarus and Russia continued to celebrate it on this date.
Sports Day in Kazakhstan is observed on the third Sunday in August. This holiday was established by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in November 2003 and has been celebrated each year since August 15, 2004.
Aviation Workers’ Day is an unofficial professional holiday in Russia. It is celebrated on the third Sunday of August, coinciding with Air Force Day. Aviation Workers’ Day is the professional holiday of all people who work in the country’s aviation industry.
The Day of Inventors and Innovators is an official professional holiday in Tajikistan, celebrated annually on the third Sunday of August. It was established by the Law of the Republic of Tajikistan “On Holidays”.
Thai Peace Day (Wan Santiphap Thai) is observed on August 16 each year. It was established in 1995 to commemorate the end of hostilities in the Second World War, as well as to honor the members of the Free Thai Movement who helped the Allies fight against Japan despite the fact that Thailand had an alliance with the Empire of Japan.
Bennington Battle Day is an official holiday in the American state of Vermont. It commemorates an American victory over the British during the American Revolutionary War, which is considered to be one of the turning points of the war.
De Jure Transfer Day is a public holiday in the Indian union territory of Puducherry, celebrated annually on August 16. On this day in 1962, France officially transferred its former colonies in the Indian Subcontinent to the Republic of India.
August 16 is National Rum Day. To celebrate this food holiday, treat yourself to your favorite rum-based cocktail or a glass room punch or even pure rum (if you are over 21, of course).
August 16 is the perfect day to go to an amusement park and ride roller coasters to your heart’s content because it is National Roller Coaster Day. This amazing holiday has been celebrated for over three decades!
Children's Day is celebrated in many countries, but its date varies from country to country. In Paraguay, the holiday is observed on August 16 to honor the memory of the children who died in the Battle of Acosta Ñu during the Paraguayan War.
Children's Day is celebrated in Argentina on the third Sunday in August. Although the date is fixed, Children's Day is often celebrated on other days due to the needs of Argentinian market, and it causes confusion among people.
Festivals on August 16, 2020
- Paris Jazz Festival in Paris, France
- Just Festival in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Music in Old Kraków in Krakow, Poland
- Edinburgh International Festival in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Music in Old Lviv in Lviv, Ukraine
- Sarajevo Film Festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwenksville, USA
- Zürcher Theater Spektakel in Zurich, Switzerland
- Oslo Jazzfestival in Oslo, Norway
- Open Night Film Festival in Kyiv, Ukraine
- Odesa Classics in Odesa, Ukraine
- Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival in Manila, Philippines
- Bienal de Flamenco in Seville, Spain
- Melbourne Writers Festival in Melbourne, Australia
- Melbourne International Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia
This Day in History
- 2019 Died: Peter Fonda, American actor, who was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider, and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold.
- 2018 Died: Aretha Franklin, American singer and pianist. She won 18 Grammy Awards and was commonly referred to as "The Queen of Soul".
- 2012 South African police fatally shot 34 miners and wounded 78 more during an industrial dispute near Rustenburg. The dispute started as a wildcat strike on August 10 and ended only on September 20.
- 1991 Born: Evanna Lynch, Irish actress and activist. She is best known for portraying Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter film series, which she reprised in the musical A Very Potter Senior Year.
- 1989 All trading on Toronto's stock market was halted due to the failure of all microchips. It turned out that they were influenced by a geomagnetic storm caused by a solar flare.
- 1985 Born: Cristin Milioti, American actress. She is known for playing Tracy McConnell in How I Met Your Mother and Sarah Wilder in the 2020 film Palm Springs.
- 1977 Died: Elvis Presley, American singer and actor, regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century. He is very often referred to as the King of Rock and Roll.
- 1975 Born: Taika Waititi, New Zealand filmmaker, actor and comedian. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.
- 1973 Died: Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born American biochemist and microbiologist. In 1952, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic active against tuberculosis.
- 1964 Vietnamese general and politician Dương Văn Minh was replaced by a coup d'état in Vietnam. General Nguyễn Khánh became President of South Vietnam, and a new constitution was adopted with the aid from the U.S. Embassy.
- 1962 Born: Steve Carell, American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Michael Scott in the sitcom The Office, in which he also worked at several points as a producer, executive producer, writer, and director.
- 1958 Born: Angela Bassett, American actress. Known for her work in film and television since the 1980s, she has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards.
- 1958 Born: Madonna, American singer, songwriter, and actress. Regarded as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting and visual presentation.
- 1957 Died: Irving Langmuir, American chemist, physicist, and engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry.
- 1954 Born: James Cameron, Canadian film director, producer and screenwriter. Three of his films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.
- 1946 Died: Margaret Mitchell, American author and journalist. Only one novel was published during her lifetime, Gone with the Wind, for which she won the National Book Award in 1936 and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937.
- 1946 Muslims started mass riots in Kolkata, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. The riots caused the deaths of more than 4,000 people within 72 hours.
- 1945 The Soviet troops captured the last Chinese emperor and ruler of Manchukuo, Puyi. In 1949, he was imprisoned as a war criminal for 10 years.
- 1938 Died: Robert Johnson, American blues musician and songwriter. Although his recording career spanned only seven months, he is recognized as a master of the blues, particularly the Delta blues style.
- 1934 Born: Pierre Richard, French actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for the roles of a clumsy daydreamer in many comedy films. He is considered to be one of the greatest and most talented French comedians of the past decades.
- 1930 Ub Iwerks made the first color sound cartoon. It was called Fiddlesticks.
- 1929 The 1929 Palestine riots broke out in Mandatory Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Jews and continued until the end of the month. In total, 133 Jews and 116 Arabs were killed.
- 1920 Born: Charles Bukowski, American poet, novelist and writer, whose works were heavily influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambiance of Los Angeles.
- 1920 American baseball player Ray Chapman was hit on the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays during the game between the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees. He died the next day.
- 1913 Born: Menachem Begin, Israeli politician, the 6th Prime Minister of Israel. In 1978, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the preparation and signing of a peace treaty with Egypt, sharing it with Anwar Sadat.
- 1906 The city of Valparaíso, Chile was hit by an estimated 8.2 magnitude earthquake. At least 3,886 people were killed.
- 1904 Born: Wendell Meredith Stanley, American biochemist and virologist. In 1946, Stanley and John Howard Northrop were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form.
- 1899 Died: Robert Bunsen, German chemist, known for investigating the emission spectra of heated elements. He discovered the chemical elements cesium and rubidium and developed several gas-analytical methods.
- 1896 Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discovered gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada. This event set off the Klondike Gold Rush.
- 1893 Died: Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on groundbreaking work about hypnosis and hysteria.
- 1888 Died: John Pemberton, American pharmacist, known around the world for inventing Coca-Cola.
- 1845 Born: Gabriel Lippmann, Luxembourger-French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate for the discovery of a method of reproduction of colors photographically based on the phenomenon of interference.
- 1836 Died: Marc-Antoine Parseval, French mathematician, most famous for stating the theorem now known as Parseval's theorem that presaged the unitarity of the Fourier transform.
- 1832 Born: Wilhelm Wundt, German physician and philosopher, one of the founding figures of modern psychology. He became the first person ever to call himself a psychologist.
- 1744 Born: Pierre Méchain, French astronomer and surveyor. He is remembered as one of the major contributors to the early study of deep sky objects and comets.
- 1705 Died: Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and theorist, one of the most prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is known for numerous contributions to calculus and probability.
- 1645 Born: Jean de La Bruyère, French philosopher and moralist. His most famous work is Caractères, based on the life of a French noble family.