Holidays Calendar for December 23, 2019
Hanukkah, also transliterated as Chanukah, is a Jewish eight-day festival of lights that starts on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. It commemorates the re-dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt, following Judah Maccabee’s victory over the Seleucids.
HumanLight is an annual holiday celebrated by the followers of secular humanism, a philosophy that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, and embraces human reason and ethics as the basis of morality and decision making. It is observed annually on December 23.
On December 23, the residents of Uttar Pradesh (India) celebrate a holiday named Kisan Divas. It is the birth anniversary of Chaudhary Charan Singh, an Indian politician who served as the 5th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and the 5th Prime Minister of India. The holiday is also celebrated as National Farmers Day countrywide.
Pancha Ganapati is a modern Hindu festival that lasts for five days, from December 21 to December 25. It honors Ganesha, one of the most worshiped Hindu deities. Ganesha is venerated as the patron of arts and culture.
The Night of the Radishes (Noche de Los Rábanos) is an annual festival that takes place on December 23, several days before Christmas, in the Mexican city of Oaxaca. It is a competition that focuses on the carving of oversized radishes to create various scenes.
December 23 is an official flag day in Sweden. This day honors the birthday of Queen Silvia, the reigning queen of Sweden.
The Egyptians celebrate Victory Day on December 23. This is not a public holiday, however, it's a very important date for the nation. This holiday marks the end of the Suez Crisis and liberation of Port Said.
National Pfeffernuesse Day is an informal holiday dedicated to tiny spiced cookies known as pfeffernuesse or peppernuts. These cookies are a typical Christmas treat in Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Festivus is a secular holiday that began as a parody holiday festival. It is celebrated on December 23 and is considered an alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas holiday season.
In the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Christmas season begins with an unusual celebration known as Tibb’s Eve, Tip’s Eve, Tipp’s Eve or Tipsy Eve. On this day, it is customary to have a couple of drinks (or even get drunk, it’s up to you really) in the company of friends, opening the Christmas holiday season.
National Roots Day is observed annually on December 23. It was created to encourage people to learn more about their family history and reflect on their ancestry and heritage.
Some people start watching Christmas movies right after Thanksgiving, while others prefer to wait a little longer before re-watching their favorite holiday flicks and checking out what’s new on Netflix. However, when Christmas is right around the corner, it’s definitely high time for Christmas movies. Celebrate National Christmas Movie Marathon Day on December 23 with your family and friends!
On December 23, the small Cornish village of Mousehole holds an annual festival named Tom Bawcock’s Eve. It is dedicated to a legendary character who is believed to have saved the villagers from starvation by fishing in the storm.
Children’s Day in Sudan and South Sudan is celebrated annually on December 23. According to ancient tribal mythology, this is the birthday of Sudan’s “greatest child”. Originally, Children’s Day was celebrated in the Republic of Sudan. After South Sudan declared its independence in 2011, it borrowed the holiday.
Festivals on December 23, 2019
- TSB Festival of Lights in New Plymouth, New Zealand
- GUM Christmas Fair at Red Square in Moscow, Russia
- World Amigurumi Exhibition in New York, USA
- Winter Wonderland at VDNG in Kyiv, Ukraine
- Rome Christmas Market in Rome, Italy
- Maastricht Christmas Market in Maastricht, Netherlands
- Riga Christmas Market in Riga, Latvia
- Gdansk Christmas Market in Gdansk, Poland
- Prague Christmas Market in Prague, Czech Republic
- Vilnius Christmas Market in Vilnius, Lithuania
- Merano Christmas Market in Merano, Italy
- Liège Christmas Market in Liège, Belgium
- Barcelona Christmas Market (Feria de Santa Lucia) in Barcelona, Spain
- Brussels Christmas Market in Brussels, Belgium
- Krakow Christmas Market in Krakow, Poland
This Day in History
- 2014 Died: Kailasam Balachander, Indian producer, actor, playwright, a well-known person in Indian cinema for his distinct filmmaking style. He was known as a master of unconventional themes and hard-hitting subject matters of contemporary time.
- 2013 Died: Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian officer, inventor. He is most famous for developing the AK-47 assault rifle and its improvements AKM, AK-74m, and the PK machine gun.
- 2009 Died: Robert L. Howard, American officer, recipient of Medal of Honor of the Vietnam War. He was also awarded 8 Purple Hearts, 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, 1 Silver Star and 4 Bronze Stars.
- 2007 Died: Michael Kidd, American choreographer, dancer and actor. Kidd staged some leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s; he's best known for his athletic dance numbers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954).
- 2007 The Kingdom of Nepal was officially abolished; the country transitioned to a federal republic headed by the Prime Minister.
- 2003 At least 234 were killed in a natural gas field explosion that occurred in Guoqiao, Kai County, Chongqing, China.
- 2002 Born: Finn Wolfhard, Canadian actor and musician known for playing Mike Wheeler on Stranger Things, Richie Tozier in the It film duology, and Trevor Spengler in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
- 1986 Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It became the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without aerial or ground refueling.
- 1984 Born: Alison Sudol, American actress and singe-songwriter. She is best known for her role as Queenie Goldstein in the Fantastic Beasts film franchise.
- 1984 Died: Joan Lindsay, Australian author best known for her novel Picnic at Hanging Rock.
- 1972 Died: Andrei Tupolev, Russian aircraft engineer. He is famous for designing the Tupolev Tu-95 and Tupolev Tu-104 aircraft.
- 1972 Died: Charles Atlas, Italian-American bodybuilder, developer of a bodybuilding method and its associated exercise program.
- 1972 More than 10,000 were killed when a 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck Managua, the capital of Nicaragua.
- 1970 Died: Charlie Ruggles, American actor whose career spanned six decades. He appeared in close to 100 films, often in comic roles.
- 1968 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo were released after 11 months of internment in North Korea.
- 1963 Born: Donna Tartt, American novelist and essayist known for her best-selling novels The Secret History, The Little Friend, and The Goldfinch.
- 1962 Born: Stefan Hell, German physicist, known for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy. This work won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014.
- 1956 Born: Dave Murray, English musician and songwriter, best known as one of the earliest members of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden.
- 1954 American surgeon J. Hartwell Harrison and Joseph Murray performed the first world's successful kidney transplant.
- 1952 Born: William Kristol, American journalist and publisher, the founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard.
- 1947 The scientists at Bell Laboratories demonstrated the transistor for the first time.
- 1946 Born: Ray Tabano, American musician, known as one of the founding members of Aerosmith. He was replaced by Brad Whitford in 1971.
- 1945 Born: Adly Mansour, Egyptian politician and judge. He served as President of Egypt from July 4, 2013 to June 8, 2014.
- 1933 Born: Akihito, member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession, from January 7, 1989 until his abdication on April 30, 2019.
- 1911 Born: Niels Kaj Jerne, Danish physician and immunologist. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies.
- 1893 The opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck received its debut performance at Hoftheater in Weimar. It was conducted by Richard Strauss.
- 1834 Died: Thomas Robert Malthus, English economist and demographer, an influential person in the related fields. He's known for his Malthusian catastrophe, a theory stating that population will be checked by famine and disease.
- 1823 A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was published anonymously. Later it was attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.
- 1812 Born: Samuel Smiles, Scottish-English author best known for his book Self-Help. This novel claims that poverty is caused largely by irresponsible habits, as well as attacks materialism and laissez-faire government.
- 1805 Born: Joseph Smith, American religious leader, founder of Mormonism. By the time of his death he attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded religion and religious culture that continues to the present day.
- 1790 Born: Jean-François Champollion, French philologist, orientalist, and scholar, primarily known as the decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. He is regarded as the founder of Egyptology.
- 1783 George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
- 1771 Died: Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, Canadian nun and saint. After becoming a widow she founded the Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal that is commonly known as the Grey Nuns.