Welcome to July 2016. What’s the big deal, you may say? The month comes around every year.

Ah, but not THIS sort of July. Check the calendar and you’ll notice something different. It has five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays. For those of you who live for the weekends, soak it in. This occurence comes around only once every 823 years!

Today, of course, is Canada Day, our northern neighbor’s official birthday, and Monday will be our own Fourth of July. But, they are not the only special days in July. Try these on for size:

2nd — World UFO Day
4th — National Country Music Day; Sidewalk Egg Frying Day
6th — International Kissing Day
8th — National Blueberry Day
10th — Teddy Bear Picnic Day
15th — Tapioca Pudding Day;  Cow Appreciation Day
20th — National Lollipop Day
21st — National Junk Food Day
23rd — National Hot Dog Day
24th — Parent’s Day (fourth Sunday in July)
26th — Aunt and Uncle Day
28th — National Milk Chocolate Day
29th — National Lasagna Day
30th — National Cheesecake Day

And, the 30th is a perfect day for Rotarians. It is the International Day of Friendship.

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• From History.com

On July 19, 1910, the governor of the state of Washington proclaimed the nation’s first “Father’s Day.” However, it was not until 1972 — 58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day official — that the day became a nationwide holiday in the United States. This year it is being celebrated on Sunday, June 19.

Origin of Mother’s Day

The “Mother’s Day” we celebrate today has its origins in the peace-and-reconciliation campaigns of the post-Civil War era. During the 1860s, at the urging of activist Ann Reeves Jarvis, one divided West Virginia town celebrated “Mother’s Work Days” that brought together the mothers of Confederate and Union soldiers. In 1870, the civic activist Julia Ward Howe issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation” calling on a “general congress of women” to “promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, [and] the great and general interests of peace.”

However, Mother’s Day did not become a commercial holiday until 1908, when — inspired by Jarvis’s daughter Anna, who wanted to honor her own mother by making Mother’s Day a national holiday — the John Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia sponsored a service dedicated to mothers in its auditorium. Thanks in large part to this association with retailers, who saw great potential for profit in the holiday, Mother’s Day caught on right away. In 1909, 45 states observed the day, and in 1914, President Wilson approved a resolution that made the second Sunday in May a holiday in honor of “that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America.”

Origins of Father’s Day

The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm, perhaps because, as one florist explained, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.”

On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, WV, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday. The next year, a Spokane, WA,  woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to

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• See who the editors of History.com picked as “History’s Best and Worst Dads.”

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establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea. She  was successful: The state of Washington celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on July 19, 1910.

Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, DC. In 1924, Read More »

On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”

More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion. By day’s end, the Allies gained had a foothold in continental Europe. The cost in lives was high. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat Adolf Hitler’s crack troops.

Go to the U.S. Army website for more information on D-Day.

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• From The History Channel

Memorial Day, an American holiday observed on the last Monday of May, honors men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, at least, it marks the beginning of summer.

Early Observances of Memorial Day

The Civil War claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history, requiring the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

Did You Know?

Each year on Memorial Day a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time.

It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, NY the official birthplace of Memorial Day. Waterloo — which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866 — was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.

Decoration Day

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.

On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there. Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had madeRead More »

… please remember it’s more than just a time for cookouts and parades. Thank a veteran or an active service member. And, above all, remember those who fell so we can remain standing strong.

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