Holidays Calendar for August 23, 2020
International Blind Dog Day is celebrated annually on August 23. It was created to bring together owners of blind and visually-impaired dogs from across the world and encourage people to give disabled dogs a loving home.
National Statistical Committee Worker's Day is one of the official professional holidays, that is observed in Belarus. This day falls on August 23 and it's celebrated since 1998.
In Iran, National Doctors’ Day is celebrated on the 1st day of the month of Shahrivar, which corresponds to August 23 in the Gregorian calendar. This date was chosen to commemorate the birthday of Avicenna, a famous Persian polymath who made a great contribution to the development of medicine.
Victory over Germany in the Battle of Kursk is one of the days of military honor in Russia. This day annually falls on August 23, that is the last day of the battle.
Ukraine annually celebrates Flag Day on August 23. This is public working holiday, that celebrates the day, when the yellow-and-blue flag was risen at the flagstaff of the Kiev City Council.
Anniversaries and Memorial Days →
European Union
European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism
European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism is observed in the countries of Europe on August 23. This day commemorates the death of people, who became victims of totalitarian ideologies, especially Stalinism (communism) and Nazism (fascism).
Anniversaries and Memorial Days →
Romania
Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Fascism and Communism in Romania
Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Fascism and Communism, formerly known as Liberation from Fascist Occupation Day, is observed in Romania on August 23. On this day in 1944, King Michael I led a coup which resulted in the overthrow of Ion Antonescu and his fascist government. Following the coup, Romania joined the Allies.
August 23 is the National Sponge Cake Day. This food holiday is dedicated to one of the simplest and oldest forms of cake which as been around since the 17th century.
August 23 is the perfect day to have a delicious ham and cheese sandwich for lunch because it is National Cuban Sandwich Day. Despite its name and origin, this sandwich is primarily associated with Florida rather than Cuba.
Go Topless Day is a special event, encouraging all women around the world to go topless, thus support their rights on gender-equality grounds. It's annually organized on the nearest Sunday to August 26.
August 23 is an excellent day to plan your next vacation because it is Cheap Flight Day. Although in reality plane tickets aren’t necessarily the cheapest on this day, it’s a great occasion to learn some tips and tricks that will help you save on airfare.
Meatball Day (Köttbullens dag) is celebrated in Sweden on August 23 every year. The holiday was created in honor of one of the most iconic dishes of Swedish cuisine.
UNESCO designated August 23 to be International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. This day memorializes the transatlantic slave trade that had been exercised for centuries.
Festivals on August 23, 2020
- Beijing International Film Festival in Beijing, China
- Onam Festival in Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram, India
- Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival in Kyiv, Ukraine
- DOKer Film Festival in Moscow, Russia
- Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy
- Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Canada
- Encounters South African International Documentary Festival in Cape Town, South Africa
- Encounters South African International Documentary Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa
- Giffoni Film Festival in Giffoni Valle Piana, Italy
- Kadayawan Festival in Davao City, Philippines
- Just Festival in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Paris Jazz Festival in Paris, France
- Music in Old Lviv in Lviv, Ukraine
- Edinburgh International Festival in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Music in Old Kraków in Krakow, Poland
This Day in History
- 2023 An Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with ten people onboard crashed near Kuzhenkino in Tver Oblast, Russia. Among the victims were Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekalov, the key figures of the Wagner Group.
- 2011 Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces took control of the Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan civil war.
- 2000 143 passengers of Gulf Air Flight 072 were killed when the airliner crashed into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain.
- 1997 Died: John Kendrew, English biochemist and crystallographer. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Max Perutz for determining the first atomic structures of proteins using X-ray crystallography.
- 1996 Osama bin Laden issued a fatwā entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". At the time, he was not yet known as the leader of al-Qaeda.
- 1993 The first known asteroid moon, later named Dactyl, was discovered by the Galileo spacecraft in the orbit around the asteroid 243 Ida.
- 1991 The World Wide Wed (WWW) was opened to new users by its inventor, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
- 1990 West and East Germany announced that their reunification would take place on October 3, 1990.
- 1989 Two million pro-independence people from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania joined their hands to form a human chain spanning 690 kilometers (430 mi) across the three states.
- 1982 Died: Stanford Moore, American biochemist and academic, the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate for his work on the structure on the enzyme ribonuclease.
- 1979 Born: Ritchie Neville, English singer, most noted for being a member of the successful boy band Five. The band was launched by the producers of Spice Girls and achieved moderate success worldwide.
- 1978 Born: Andrew Rannells, American actor. He is best known for originating the role of Elder Kevin Price in the 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.
- 1974 Born: Konstantin Novoselov, Russian-born British physicist and academic. In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for groundbreaking experiments regarding the material graphene.
- 1970 Born: River Phoenix, American actor, musician and activist, the older brother of American actors Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix.
- 1966 The first photo of Earth was taken from orbit around the Moon by Lunar Orbiter 1, the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon.
- 1946 Born: Keith Moon, English drummer, songwriter, and producer, known as the drummer of the English rock band the Who. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock music.
- 1944 38 children and 23 grownups were killed when a United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashed into a school in Freckleton, England.
- 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dividing spheres of influence over Eastern Europe.
- 1933 Born: Robert Curl, American chemist and academic. In 1996, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the nanomaterial buckminsterfullerene.
- 1931 Born: Hamilton O. Smith, American microbiologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for the discovery of type II restriction enzymes.
- 1926 Died: Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor based in the US who starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle, and The Son of the Sheik.
- 1924 Born: Robert Solow, American economist and Nobel laureate whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him.
- 1921 Born: Kenneth Arrow, American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. Along with John Hicks, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972.
- 1912 Born: Gene Kelly, American dancer, actor, singer, director and choreographer. His best known works include An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, Cover Girl, Anchors Aweigh, and other films.
- 1892 Died: Deodoro da Fonseca, Brazilian politician and military officer who served as the first president of Brazil. He led a coup that deposed Emperor Pedro II and established the First Brazilian Republic.
- 1831 Died: Ferenc Kazinczy, Hungarian author, poet, translator, neologist, and an agent in the regeneration of the Hungarian language and literature at the turn of the 19th century.
- 1813 Died: Alexander Wilson, Scottish-American poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and illustrator, identified by zoologist George Ord as the "Father of American Ornithology".
- 1806 Died: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French officer, engineer, and physicist. He is best known as the discoverer of what is now called Coulomb's law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion.
- 1769 Born: Georges Cuvier, French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". He was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century.
- 1628 Died: George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, English courtier, statesman, and patron of the arts. He was a favorite and self-described "lover" of King James VI and I.
- 1591 Died: Luis de León, Spanish lyric poet, Augustinian friar, theologian and academic active during the Spanish Golden Age. His poetry was a source of inspiration for various Neoclassical poets.
- 1305 Died: William Wallace, Scottish commander, one of the main leaders during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He was appointed Guardian of Scotland and served in this position until his death.