Holidays Calendar for October 17, 2019

The death anniversary of Dessalines is a public holiday in Haiti. It is observed annually on October 17 to commemorate the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a former slave and prominent figure in the fight of Haiti for independence from France.

Sukkot is a seven-day Jewish holiday. Its celebration starts on the 15th day of Tishrei. Along with Pesach and Shavuot, it belongs to Shalosh Regalim (the Three Pilgrimage Festivals), on which the Israelites were required to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Temple.

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World Trauma Day is observed annually on October 17. This international awareness day was created in order to highlight the importance of protecting and saving lives during emergency situations.

International Credit Union Day was established in 1948 and since then it's annually observed on the third Thursday in October.

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Spirit Day is an international campaign established to highlight a problem that cannot be ignored, the bullying of gay and lesbian teenagers that leads to hundreds of suicides every year. Inaugurated in 2010, Spirit Day calls on people to support LGBT youth.

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Thailand has many national observances that are regulated by government, but they are not always observed as actual holidays. One of such observances is National Police Day, celebrated annually on October 17.

Primary Care Physician Day, sometimes also translated as General Practitioner Day, is an unofficial holiday celebrated by Russian primary care physicians in addition to the official Health Worker Day. It is observed annually on October 17.

Philippine Coast Guard Day (Araw ng Tanod Baybabin ng Pilipinas) is observed annually on October 17. It is a working holiday commemorating the establishment of the Bureau of Coast Guard and Transportation in 1901.

People of Argentina annually observe Loyalty Day (Día de la lealtad) on October 17. This is a memorial day, commemorating the beginning of the massive labor demonstration at the May Square demanding the liberation of Argentinian military officer Juan Perón, jailed in Martín García island.

The date of October 17 is very important to many people in India, who look into future and speak up for the progress of the country. On this day they observe Digital Society Day, that was created to commemorate the passage of the Information Technology Act in 2000.

National Pasta Day is observed every year on October 17. Pasta is a staple food from Italian cuisine that has been around for almost a millennium and is popular in many countries.

In 1993 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was established by the United Nations General Assembly and since then it is observed every year on October 17.

National Edge Day, also referred to as simply Edge Day, is a holiday celebrated by members of the straight edge community on October 17. It was founded in 1999 and has been observed annually ever since.

Purple Thursday, also known as Wear Purple Day, is an annual awareness campaign held on the third Thursday of October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It was launched to raise awareness about domestic violence and, more specifically, about the intersection between traumatic brain injury and domestic violence.

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This Day in History

  • 2019 Civil protests began in Lebanon after the government announced planned taxes on gasoline, tobacco, and VoIP calls on apps. The 17 October Protest triggered a political crisis in the country.
  • 2013 Died: Mother Antonia, American Roman Catholic nun and activist. She is best known in Mexican notorious maximum-security La Mesa Prison, where she resided and cared for inmates.
  • 2012 Died: Stanford R. Ovshinsky, American inventor and scientist. Over 50 years he was granted over 400 patents, mostly in the areas of energy conservation and information. His most prominent inventions are nickel-metal hydride battery (largely used in laptops, digital cameras, cell phones etc), rewritable CD and DVD discs, phase-change memory.
  • 2009 Died: Vic Mizzy, American composer, best remembered for his works for television and movies, including the themes of popular sitcoms Green Acres and The Adams Family.
  • 2003 The pinnacle was fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei. The pinnacle allowed the skyscraper to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 184 feet and become the world's tallest building.
  • 1984 Born: Chris Lowell, American actor, known to the audience for his role of Stosh "Piz" Piznarski in the CW noir drama Veronica Mars and the character William "Dell" Parker in the ABC Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice.
  • 1980 Queen Elizabeth II visited the Vatican. This visit became the first state visit of the British monarch to the Holy See as a part of the foreign relations between the Vatican and the United Kingdom.
  • 1979 Born: Kimi Räikkönen, Finnish race driver of Formula One. He won Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 2007 and he's considered to be one of the best drivers in the world.
  • 1979 Mother Theresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress. She refused to come to the ceremonial banquet and asked her monetary prize ($192,000) to be given to the poor in India.
  • 1978 Died: Giovanni Gronchi, Italian politician, the 3rd President of Italy from 1955 to 1962. His presidency was marked by a controversial and failed attempt to bring about an opening to the left.
  • 1973 OPEC imposed an oil embargo against a number of Western countries. It's considered that this helped Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria.
  • 1972 Born: Tarkan, Turkish singer, a winner of World Music Award. He is one of the most popular singers in Turkey, despite his attempts he couldn't gain fame in Europe.
  • 1972 Born: Marshall Bruce Mathers III, better known under stage name Eminem, American rapper, producer, actor and songwriter. He was ranked one of the best-selling artists of the 2000s and Rolling Stone magazine declared him The King of Hip Hop.
  • 1971 Born: Chris Kirkpatrick, American singer and dancer, best known as a founding member of the pop group NSYNC.
  • 1969 Born: Wyclef Jean, Haitian and American rapper and musician. He is the recipient of three Grammy Awards, the BET Humanitarian Award, and a Vanguard Award from the NAACP Image Awards.
  • 1966 Born: Mark Gatiss, English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, director, and novelist. His work on television includes Doctor Show, Sherlock, and Game of Thrones.
  • 1963 Died: Jacques Hadamard, French mathematician, remembered for his major contributions in number theory, complex function theory, differential geometry and partial differential equation.
  • 1961 Up to 400 Algerian protesters were massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
  • 1957 Born: Lawrence Bender, American film producer, who rose to fame by producing Reservoir Dogs in 1992. Since then he produced all of Quentin Tarantino's films (excepting Death Proof and Django Unchained).
  • 1956 Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer played a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. The game was won by a 13-year-old Fischer.
  • 1948 Born: James Oliver Rigney, Jr, better known under the pen name Robert Jordan, American author. His best known work is The Wheel of Time, that consists of 14 books and a prequel novel.
  • 1933 German-born physicist Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany and moved to the United States, where he died on April 17, 1955 from internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
  • 1930 Born: Robert Atkins, American physician, best known for the Atkins Nutritional Approach, or Atkins Diet, a control but controversial way of eating.
  • 1922 Born: Pierre Juneau, Canadian broadcaster and politician, known as a co-founder of the Montreal World Film Festival, the oldest Canadian film festival.
  • 1912 Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, thus joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
  • 1893 Died: Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, French general, politician, the 3rd President of France serving in office from May 24, 1873 to January 30, 1879.
  • 1887 Died: Gustav Kirchhoff, German physicist, known for contributions in electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects.
  • 1868 Died: Laura Secordf, Canadian war heroine. She walked 20 miles out of American-occupied territory in 1813 to warn the British forces about the American attack. Her contribution to war was little known during her lifetime, but posthumously she's been frequently awarded in Canada.
  • 1849 Died: Frédéric Chopin, Polish pianist and composer. He wrote primarily for the solo piano and gained worldwide success as one of the leading musicians of his era.
  • 1814 A huge vat containing over 135,000 imperial gallons of beer rupture in the parish of St. Giles, London, England. This caused the other vats to succumb in a domino effect, more that 323,000 imperial gallons of beer burst out and gushed into the streets. 8 people died.
  • 1771 The opera Ascanio in Alba was premiered in Milan. The opera was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who were only 15 at that time.
  • 1757 Died: René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, French scientist, remembered for numerous contributions to many fields, especially the study of insects. He is best known for introduction of the Réaumur temperature scale, in which the freezing and boiling points of water were set at 0 and 80 degrees respectively.
  • 1711 Born: Jupiter Hammon, American poet. He was the first African-American poet to be published in the present-day United States. Hammon was born into slavery and never emancipated, today he is considered to be one of the founders of African-American literature.