All - Leep Calendar

On January 26, 1950, India's Constitution was enacted, and the former British colony officially became an independent republic. British rule ended on August 15, 1947, but continued in absentia as a Constitutional Monarchy under King George VI until the Indian constitution came into effect. Today, India is the most populous democracy in the world, and Republic Day is celebrated annually on this anniversary.

Africa

Jan

Spouse's Day: January 26

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Spouse's Day in the United States demonstrates gratitude and appreciation for the man or woman who stands beside you, your spouse, through thick and thin.

Africa

Jan

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement: January 26

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Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement is a day for people to reach out and make a sincere, heartfelt connection with someone else. The holiday's name comes from 'Toad Hollow Country School,' a story written by a girl named Eunice in the early 19th century. The story was later picked up by her college professor Ralph C. Morrison. Mister Morrison read and liked the story so much that he incorporated it into his storytelling, and thus a legend was born. Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement inspired the story's message of openness and connectedness with people.

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Jan

Plan Your Vacation Day: January 27

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Created to encourage Americans to begin planning their summer holiday, Plan Your Vacation Day is an awareness campaign by the US Travel Association. Tool kits are available on their website for the next year, starting in the fall.

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Jan

Up Helly AA (UK): January 27

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For all you Viking fans, the town of Lerwick, Scotland, has an annual celebration to close out the Yule season you'll love—Up Helly Aa. Up Helly Aa centers on the burning of a Viking Galley each year. In Nordic culture, this was done annually as a sacrifice to the sun god. It's both a festival and an impressive bonfire, the likes you'll never see again—until the next Yuletide. Held annually on the last Tuesday in January.

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Jan

Breast Pumping Day, World: January 27

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World Breast Pumping Day, created in 2017, raises awareness and support for breast pumping, a vital aspect of many new mothers' lives. The day is rooted in the desire to normalize breast pumping and provide education about breast pumping, support breastfeeding mothers, and advocate for the necessary accommodations in workplaces and public spaces for pumping. Breast pumps have become an essential tool for new mothers for various reasons. They allow mothers to maintain their milk supply and ensure their babies have access to breast milk even if the mother returns to work after childbirth. Pumping is also essential for premature or hospitalized infants needing the best nutrition and for mothers who face difficulties with direct breastfeeding, latching problems, or who have an oversupply of milk due to miscarriage, the child's death, or other reasons. Using one also allows other caregivers to participate in feeding the baby, promoting bonding. Breast milk is considered the best food for infants due to its comprehensive nutritional benefits and its role in supporting the immune system. By enabling mothers to pump and store breast milk, breast pumps contribute to the continued health and well-being of the baby. World Breast Pumping Day serves as an opportunity to educate the public about the importance of breast milk and the role of breast pumping in supporting breastfeeding goals. It also highlights the need for societal support and infrastructure, such as lactation rooms and pumping breaks at work, to assist pumping mothers.

Africa

Jan

Chocolate Cake Day: January 27

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Love chocolate cake? Then you have James Baker to thank. Baker invented chocolate as we know it today in a form that could be cooked. In 1764 Mr. Baker placed beans between millstones and ground them to dust. As a powder, it could be mixed with liquids or solids to change the flavor, the same way you add salt or other seasonings. However, this process was quite expensive, so only the wealthiest could afford it. By the early nineteenth century (1828), Conrad Van Houten developed a method for extracting cacao liquor from the fat in the cocoa bean making chocolate an affordable ingredient, and its popularity took off. Devil’s Food cake by the Pittsburgh-based Duff Company was the first chocolate cake mix. However, WWII got in the way, and at the end of the war, Duncan Hines and General Mills burst on the scene with their cake mixes and took nearly half the market between them. By the millennium, artisan chocolate cakes, those without flour and closer to the consistency of fudge brownies with less sugar, became the rage. However you like your chocolate cake, today is the day to enjoy it. Indulge!

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Jan

Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nazism (DE)(1945): January 27

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On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Poland's infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. Each year since 1996, the nation of Germany has marked this anniversary as a day to remember all victims of National Socialism (Nazi), regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, political beliefs, or religion.

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Jan

Family Literacy Day (CA): January 27

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Family Literacy Day in Canada focuses on parents and their role in improving reading and writing skills within their families. Parents keep their skills sharp by reading to children and engaging in fun literary activities, strengthening family ties and encouraging lifelong learning.

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Jan

Holocaust Victims' Day, World (1945): January 27

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Holocaust Victims' Day remembers the horrific events of the 1930s through the mid-1940s in Europe, including summary killings, imprisonment, discrimination, and other state-supported acts of terror that began as early as 1933. Holocaust Victims' Day marks the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by Russian soldiers on January 27, 1945, and is observed in memory of the over 12 million victims who perished. The Holocaust is one of the most significant manmade tragedies in recent history in scale and brutality. Victims were targeted based on their faith, physical or mental challenges, political views, color, and sexual orientation. Many were imprisoned and used as slave labor, and others were murdered, died of disease, or starved in purpose-built concentration camps. People targeted by the Nazi regime for imprisonment and extermination included those of the Jewish faith, Catholic faith, Romani (Gypsies), the mentally ill, disabled, communists, persons of color, and homosexuals. Political prisoners were generally communists or thought leaders and intellectuals, irrespective of faith, including teachers, artists, writers, journalists, clergy, lawyers, politicians, and business owners. For example, when Nazi Germany conquered Poland six weeks after invading in 1939, only three percent of the intellectual class remained alive. Anyone who could lead or form resistance was murdered. The largest demographic targeted and murdered were those of the Jewish faith; in totality, 25% of the world's Jewish population perished under Nazism. Though a smaller population, 25% of the world's Romani population was exterminated during the Holocaust as well. Using a network of concentration camps connected by trains to imprison and enslave people by demographic was not a Nazi invention. The tactic was first deployed during the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917, resulting in over one million deaths. Officers of the German army were allies of the Ottomans in WWI and participated in the slaughter. Sixteen years later, they perfected the system during WWII. Holocaust Victims' Day honors all the victims, regardless of faith, race, health, or sexual orientation, and urges society to learn from the circumstances leading up to and causing this international tragedy.

Africa

Jan

Punch-the-Clock Day: January 27

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Punch the Clock Day can be celebrated in one of two ways, by supervisors who love the Workman's Time Recorder, patent number 452,894, granted on May 26, 1891, to Willard Le Grand Bundy. Or by employees ruled by this early form of Big Brother, who are encouraged to punch the time clock tyrant with a well-placed left hook. However you choose to celebrate today, one thing is sure. For better or worse, the Workman's Time Recorder did revolutionize the workplace.

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Jan

Thomas Crapper Day (1910): January 27

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Thomas Crapper Day honors Thomas Crapper, an English plumber born in Yorkshire in 1837, who died on January 27, 1910. Crapper is errantly credited with inventing the modern flushing toilet; he did not—but he is the key reason outhouses fell out of favor and homes have WCs. The first flush toilet was created in 1596 by Sir John Harington, the godson of Queen Elizabeth I, for the palace. The first patent for a version that contained the water went to Alexander Cumming of England in 1775. In the 1880s, Crapper expanded on Cumming's "S-shaped" plumbing patent with the ballcock, the float inside the tank that allows water to regulate its level. Once Prince Albert took him on as royal plumber, he began mass-producing the commode under his company "Thomas Crapper & Co." His invention remained largely a European convenience until American soldiers returned via England in 1918 after WWI experienced it. Referred to as the "porcelain throne," models often bore the brand name "Crapper," thus Thomas' association with the privy. Crapper spent his life advocating for sanitation and increasing accessibility to it for the general public. He is the first to support toilets in the homes of every man, not just the aristocracy. Over his life, he received nine patents, with three related to the humble toilet. Unless you've traveled through rural Asia or Africa, where the western toilet is often non-existent (or replaced with in-the-floor squat pots—as a woman, do not get me started), you've probably never appreciated it. Or what a messy and uncomfortable process doing one's business once was and can still be in some parts of the world.

Africa

Jan

Vietnam Conflict Ends (1973): January 27

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Vietnam Peace Day on January 27th commemorates the end of the Vietnam Conflict with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973, by representatives of the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong. It is a day to reflect on the peace agreement that led to the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, signaling the end of one of the most contentious conflicts of the 20th century. This agreement marked a pivotal moment in the Vietnam Conflict. The accords declared a ceasefire across North and South Vietnam and established terms that led to the withdrawal of US military forces. While the ceasefire and the withdrawal of American troops did not immediately result in peace—fighting continued in various parts of Vietnam until 1975—the signing of the Paris Peace Accords was a significant step toward ending the conflict. The last American died in the war 11 hours before the parties signed the agreement. In the United States, Vietnam Peace Day is a day for veterans, their families, and communities to come together to remember the past and to consider the lessons learned from Vietnam. In Vietnam, the day is not marked. It is important to note that America could have avoided the Vietnam Conflict. Following the First World War, a young Vietnamese diplomat, Hồ Chí Minh, attempted to ally with the United States in 1919 at Versailles based on the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. At the time, the Japanese and French occupied and threatened the small nation. President Wilson refused, forcing the nation to turn toward communism in search of allies to support them in ending the occupation. It was a decision that would eventually lead to the decades-long conflict, which was never referred to officially as a "war" but ultimately resulted in the death of millions.

Africa

Jan

Thank Your Mentor Day, Ntl.: January 28

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Every January, the mentoring movement unites in celebration of National Mentoring Month. Within the month are several awareness days, including today's Thank Your Mentor Day event. We all have mentors, whether parents, teachers, siblings, or coworkers. Some of us are lucky enough to get involved with mentor programs like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, or Jobs for America's Graduates. Mentors are critical to our success individually and as a community, whether formal or informal. Today is the day to thank yours.

Africa

Jan

Library Selfie Day: January 28

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Selfies are self-portraits taken with a cell phone, something quite difficult to do before 2008. Inevitably, organizations would eventually tap into this trend and find ways to celebrate and promote their products and services. Library Selfie Day, created in 2014, encourages people to enter their local library and take a selfie with the books and other services offered for posting on Social Media. Throughout the nation, thousands of public and private libraries hold special events on this day, including photography competitions for the best and most creative selfies. Annually on the fourth Wednesday of January.

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