Holidays Calendar for August 31, 2017
National Language Day is one of the most important public holidays in the Republic of Moldova. It is celebrated on August 31. The Moldovan name of the holiday is Limba noastră, which means “Our Language”. It is also the name of the country's national anthem.
Independence Day in Kyrgyzstan is celebrated on August 31. It is a national holiday that commemorates the independence of Kyrgyzstan from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Independence Day (Hari Merdeka) is a national day of Malaysia that commemorates the independence of the Federation of Malaya from the United Kingdom. It is celebrated annually on August 31.
Independence Day of Trinidad and Tobago, a small island country in the Caribbean, is celebrated on August 31. On that day in 1962, Trinidad and Tobago proclaimed its independence from Great Britain.
Public Holidays →
Afghanistan
Anniversary of the Withdrawal of the Last American Soldier in Afghanistan
The anniversary of the withdrawal of the last American soldier is one of the public holidays established by the Taliban government of Afghanistan. It is celebrated annually on August 31.
International Overdose Awareness Day is an annual awareness day held in many countries around the world. It honors the memory of people who died from drug overdoses. The main goal of this observance is to raise public awareness abound drug overdoses as one of the leading causes of death among drug users, as well as emphasize the importance of their prevention.
World Distance Learning Day is celebrated annually on August 31. It was created to dispel the stereotype that the classroom is the only place for successful education and raise awareness of the many forms of distance learning that exist today.
African Traditional Medicine Day is celebrated annually on August 31. It was established by the World Health Organization to honor the importance of traditional medicine for African population and advocate for its integration into healthcare systems.
Celebration of Teachers' Day in many countries around the world is organized on different dates. This holiday is celebrated in Singapore annually on August 31.
We Love Memoirs Day is celebrated by memoir authors and readers annually on August 31. The holiday was inaugurated in 2013 and has quickly spread across the globe.
Romanian Language Day (Ziua Limbii Române) is celebrated annually on August 31 both in Romania and by the Romanian diaspora around the globe, coinciding with National Language Day in neighboring Moldova.
Anniversaries and Memorial Days →
Uzbekistan
Memorial Day for the Victims of Repression in Uzbekistan
August 31 is Memorial Day for the Victims of Repression in Uzbekistan. This remembrance day was officially established by President Islam Karimov in 2001.
Day of Solidarity and Freedom is a national holiday in the Republic of Poland celebrated on August 31. It commemorates the August Agreement of 1980. Despite its status as a national holiday, it is normally a working day, unless it falls during the weekend.
On August 31, most Malaysians celebrate Independence Day (Hari Merdeka), a national holiday commemorating the independence of the Federation of Malaysia from the British Empire. However, the citizens of Sabah celebrate another holiday named North Borneo Self-Government Day. Although it coincides with Malaysian Independence Day, it has a different historical background.
Surigao City Charter Day (Araw ng Pribilehiyo ng Lungsod ng Surigao) is a special non-working holiday in Surigao City, Surigao del Norte, Philippines. It is celebrated on August 31 to commemorate the day when Surigao wad converted from a municipality to a city.
August 31 is the National Trail Mix Day. This food holiday is devoted to a type of snack mix consisting of dried fruit and nuts, sometimes with added chocolate.
Blog Day (sometimes stylized as 3l0g Day) is an unofficial holiday celebrated by bloggers across the world on August 31. It was first marked in 2005.
The International Day for People of African Descent is one of the United Nations international observances. It is observed annually on August 31 to highlight the contributions of the African diaspora across the world and to fight discrimination against people of African descent.
Baloch-Pakhtun Unity Day is an annual observance held on August 31 in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and some other countries. It is dedicated to two Iranic peoples who live mainly in Pakistan (the Balochistan province) and Afghanistan.
Festivals on August 31, 2017
- Fan Expo Canada in Toronto, Canada
- Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival in Willemstad, Curaçao
- Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival in Gatineau, Canada
- Halifax Fringe Festival in Halifax, Canada
- Venice International Film Festival in Venice, Italy
- Chicago Fringe Festival in Chicago, USA
- Pluk de Nacht Film Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands
- Vegfest Brasil in Recife, Brazil
- Odense International Film Festival in Odense, Denmark
- Burning Man in Black Rock City, USA
- Zimbabwe International Film Festival in Harare, Zimbabwe
- Edinburgh Mela in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Onam Festival in Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram, India
- Melbourne Writers Festival in Melbourne, Australia
- Montreal World Film Festival in Montreal, Canada
This Day in History
- 2006 The Norwegian police recovered the famous painting The Scream by Edvard Munch after it had been stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo on August 22, 2004.
- 2005 Died: Joseph Rotblat, Polish and British physicist. During World War II he worked on Tube Alloys and the Manhattan Project, but left the Los Alamos Laboratory on grounds of conscience.
- 2005 953 people died following a panic, and subsequent crowd crush, on the Al-Aimmah Bridge, which crosses the Tigris river in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
- 2002 Died: George Porter, British chemist. In 1967 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in developing the technique of flash photolysis.
- 1997 Died: Diana, Princess of Wales, member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry.
- 1987 Thai Airways Flight 365 en route from Hat Yai International Airport to Phuket International Airport (both in Thailand) crashed into the ocean near Ko Phuket. All 74 passengers and 9 crew on board died.
- 1986 The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sank in the Black Sea after colliding with a bulk carrier. 359 passengers and 64 crew out of total 1,234 on board drowned.
- 1985 Died: Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian virologist, remembered for his contributions to immunology. In 1960 he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for predicting acquired immune tolerance.
- 1980 Over 200 people died in a flood caused by heavy rain in Ibadan, Nigeria, and more than 50,000 were left homeless. Ibadan was virtually left in ruins.
- 1975 Born: Sara Ramirez, American actor. They are best known for their roles as Dr. Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy and as Che Díaz on And Just Like That...
- 1974 Born: Marc Webb, American filmmaker and music video director. He is best known for directing 500 Days of Summer and The Amazing Spider-Man films starring Andrew Garfield.
- 1971 Born: Chris Tucker, American actor, comedian, known for his roles as Smokey in Friday, Detective James Carter in the Rush Hour film series, Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element, and others.
- 1969 Died: Rocky Marciano, American boxer, the World Heavyweight Champion from 1952 to 1956. He is the only person to hold the heavyweight title without a bout tie of defeat during his entire career.
- 1963 Died: Georges Braque, French painter and sculptor, remembered for his contributions to the development of Cubism. His works are closely associated with his colleague Pablo Picasso.
- 1949 Born: Richard Gere, American actor. He came to prominence with his role in the 1980 film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol.
- 1949 Born: Hugh David Politzer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics. He received the prize in 2004.
- 1945 Born: Itzhak Perlman, Israeli-Born American violinist, conductor, and pedagogue, one of the most outstanding violinists of the second half of the 20th century.
- 1939 Nazi Germany mounted a false flag attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, thus starting World War II in Europe.
- 1936 Radio Prague, now the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic, went on the air.
- 1935 The United States passed the first of its Neutrality Acts. This step was made in an attempt to stay out of growing turmoil in Europe.
- 1920 Died: Wilhelm Wundt, German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, widely regarded as one of the fathers of modern psychology and the father of experimental psychology.
- 1908 Born: William Saroyan, Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940 and the Academy Award for Best Story in 1943.
- 1907 The Anglo-Russian Convention was signed in Saint Petersburg. It identified the parties' respective control in Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet, and ended a long-standing struggle for power throughout Central Asia.
- 1900 Born: Gino Lucetti, Italian anarchist. In 1926 he made an attempt to assassinate Benito Mussolini, Italian leader of the National Fascist Party, but failed and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
- 1897 Thomas Edison patented the Kinetoscope that became the first movie projector in the world.
- 1880 Born: Wilhelmina, Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948. Her reign lasted for 58 years and saw two world wars and an economic crisis in the Netherlands.
- 1870 Born: Maria Montessori, Italian physician and educator best known for her philosophy of education and her writing on scientific pedagogy.
- 1867 Died: Charles Baudelaire, French poet, best known for his work The Flowers of Evil, depicting the changing nature of beauty in Paris during the 19th century.
- 1814 Died: Arthur Phillip, English admiral and politician, the first Governor of New South Wales and the founder of the British penal colony that would become Sidney.
- 1741 Born: Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, French composer. His best known masterpiece is the vocal romance "Plaisir d'amour", on which the 1961 Elvis Presley pop standard "Can't Help Falling in Love" is based.
- 1422 Died: Henry V, King of England from 1413 until his death. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe.
- 12 Born: Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known as Caligula, Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination as a result of a conspiracy in AD 41.