Canada Day : Canada.  Known as Dominion Day until 1982, this day celebrates the confederation of upper and lower Canada into the Dominion of Canada in 1867.

 Founding of Communist Party : People's Republic of China.  Public holiday.

 Republic Day : Ghana.  On this day in 1960, Ghana gained independence within the Commonwealth of Great Britain.

 SAR Establishment Day : Hong Kong.  Public holiday.

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 Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) : African American.  Civil rights leader and Supreme Court justice. As head of the legal services division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1938 to 1962, Thurgood Marshall led the legal effort to advance the civil rights of all Americans, particularly those belonging to minority groups. His most famous victory was the 1954 Supreme Court decision ending racial segregation in public schools. (See entry for May 17.) He continued to work for civil rights and equal opportunity as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, second circuit (1962–1965), Solicitor General of the United States (1965–1967), and finally as the first African American associate justice of the Supreme Court, where he served from 1967 to 1991.

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 Independence Day celebrations (7/3-7/10) : Bahamas.  This commemorates the Bahamas' gaining independence within the Commonwealth of Great Britain in 1973. This holiday is observed from July 3 through July 10.

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 Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) : Italian.  Military leader. Garibaldi led the military forces of the revolutionary movement for the unification and independence of Italy from 1848 to 1867. A national hero, Garibaldi is considered one of the great guerrilla generals of modern times.

 Edmonia Lewis (1845–unknown date, after 1911) : African American, American Indian (Ojibway).  Sculptor. Lewis, largely self-taught, first came to public attention in 1864 with a medallion of the head of John Brown and a portrait bust of the late Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw. Sale of copies of the Shaw bust earned her enough to travel to Rome, where she established a studio and pursued a successful career, which peaked in the late 60s and early 70s. Much of her work is lost today, but it is known to have included a number of works depicting African American and American Indian themes.

 Independence Day : United States.  This commemorates the day in 1776 that delegates of the Thirteen Colonies signed the Declaration of Independence announcing their separation from Great Britain and the establishment of the United States of America.

 Philippine-American Friendship Day : Philippines.  This celebrates the day in 1946 that the United States granted independence to the Philippines after ruling it since 1905. (See entry for Independence Day on June 12.)

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 Independence Day : Algeria.  Ruled by the Ottoman Turks since the mid-sixteenth century and populated mainly by Arabs who introduced Islam as the country's predominant religion, Algeria became a colony of France in 1848. A war of independence from France began in 1954, and Algeria became independent in 1962.

 Independence Day : Venezuela.  First colonized by Spain in the fifteenth century, Venezuela began a war of independence led by Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar that lasted from 1810 to 1821. It is on this day in 1811 that Venezuela declared its independence from Spain. This day is celebrated in Venezuela as a national holiday.

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 Day of Statehood : Lithuania.  Public holiday.

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 Independence Day : Argentina.  This marks the establishment of an independent Argentina after its war with Spain from 1810–1816.

 King Hassan's Birthday : Morocco.  Public holiday.

 Martyrdom of the Bab : Baha'i.  This holiday commemorates the arrest, torture, imprisonment, and eventual execution of the Bab in Tabriz, Persia, in 1850. The Bab's body is buried at the Baha'i temple in Haifa, Israel.

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 Arthur Ashe (1943–1993) : African American.  Athlete, writer, and activist. The first Black tennis player to win the men's titles at the U.S. Open (1968) and Wimbledon (1975), Arthur Ashe became known for his power and skill as a player and for his dignity and eloquence as a leader, particularly in efforts to combat racial discrimination. He helped integrate professional sports in South Africa and founded and worked to maintain tennis programs for inner-city youth in the United States. After heart problems led to his retirement from professional play in 1980, he researched and wrote The Hard Road to Glory, published in 1988. After announcing in the spring of 1992 that he had contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion, Ashe spent the last year of his life campaigning for greater public awareness of the disease and raising funds for research and treatment programs.

 Saul Bellow (1915–2005) : Jewish American.  Writer. The son of Russian immigrants, Saul Bellow was born Solomon Bellows in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec, and moved with his family to Chicago in 1924. He changed his first name to Saul and dropped the “s” from his last name when he began publishing in the 1940s. Bellow was a contributor to Partisan Review along with Alfred Kazin, Mary McCarthy, and Delmore Schwartz. Author of such books as The Adventures of Augie March, his breakthrough 1953 best seller about urban immigrant life in Chicago, Henderson the Rain King (1959), and Herzog (1964), Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, as well as a Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt’s Gift (1975), three National Book Awards, a Presidential Medal, and more honors than any other American writer. In awarding his Nobel Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy cited Bellow’s “exuberant ideas, flashing irony, hilarious comedy and burning compassion.”

 Nicolás Guillén (1902–1989) : Cuban.  Poet. A Cuban of mixed European and African ancestry, Guillén became a major exponent in the late 1920s and 1930s of poetry that is often called Afro-Cuban. He is also known for his poetry of social protest and his other writings advocating political and social reform.

 Independence Day : Bahamas.  This commemorates the Bahamas' gaining independence within the Commonwealth of Great Britain in 1973. This holiday is observed from July 3 through July 10.

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 Flemish Community Holiday : Belgium.  Celebrated in Flemish communities in Belgium, this day commemorates the battle in 1302 in which the Flemish declared their independence from France.

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 Constantine Brumidi (1805–1880) : Italian American.  Painter. A successful painter in Italy, Brumidi came to the United States in 1852 as a political refugee. In 1855 he began a quarter century of work at the U.S. Capitol building, decorating it with frescoes on patriotic themes. His most famous work is "The Apotheosis of Washington" in the Capitol dome.

 Gunnar Dybwad (1909-2002). Advocate for people with disabilities : People with Disabilities.  A Professor of human development at Brandeis University, Dybwad Dybwad was one of the first to articulate the issues facing people with disabilities as civil rights issues and not only as medical and social issues. He played a significant role in convincing the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children to sue on behalf of children with disabilities. The 1972 case led to establishment of the right of disabled children to receive a public education and helped spur the enactment of laws dealing with disability rights.

 Battle of Boyne Day : Northern Ireland.  Public holiday.

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 Kenneth B. Clark (1914–2005) : African American.  Psychologist and educator. Kenneth B. Clark is best known for his research that influenced the 1954 Supreme Court finding in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that segregated schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional. In the early 1950s, Clark, along with his wife and colleague, Mamie Phipps Clark, conducted their monumental “doll test” study, which showed Black children’s preference for white-skinned dolls over brown-skinned dolls, illustrating the damaging effects of racial segregation on Black school children. This research was cited by attorney Thurgood Marshall in the NAACP challenge of the constitutionality of the “separate but equal” doctrine in the landmark Supreme Court case. Kenneth Clark’s life was a series of “firsts”: He was the first Black to earn a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, the first Black to become a tenured professor at the City University of New York in 1960, the first Black elected to the New York State Board of Regents in 1966, and the first Black president of the American Psychological Association. Among his writings are Dark Ghetto (1965), A Relevant War Against Poverty (1969), A Possible Reality (1972), and Pathos of Power (1974).

 Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991) : Jewish American.  Writer. Singer was the leading writer in the Yiddish language after World War II and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. Most of his works have been translated into English.

 Bastille (bass-steel) Day : France.  This celebrates the fall of the Bastille prison, marking the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 and the eventual end of monarchial rule and the creation of a French Republic.

When Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, French-speaking populations were incorporated into the United States. This included the French-speaking Acadians, who emigrated from Acadia in Canada in the mid-1700s and settled primarily in the Lafayette Parish region of southern Louisiana. Joined by other settlers such as Creoles, descendants of African, West Indian, and European pioneers, they over time formed a new cultural group that came to be known as “Cajuns.” Given their French heritage, many Louisiana “parishes,” including New Orleans and Kaplan, sometimes called “the most Cajun place on earth,” hold Bastille Day festivals featuring Cajun food, music, and dance.

Recognizing the Festival/Holiday: When Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, French-speaking populations were incorporated into the United States. This included the French-speaking Acadians, who emigrated from Acadia in Canada in the mid-1700s and settled primarily in the Lafayette Parish region of southern Louisiana. Joined by other settlers such as Creoles, descendants of African, West Indian, and European pioneers, they over time formed a new cultural group that came to be known as “Cajuns.” Given their French heritage, many Louisiana “parishes,” including New Orleans and Kaplan, sometimes called “the most Cajun place on earth,” hold Bastille Day festivals featuring Cajun food, music, and dance.

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 (Saint) Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917) : Italian American.  Founder of a religious order. A woman of phenomenal energy and organizational genius, Sister Frances Cabrini founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, an order of nuns devoted to service in schools, orphanages, hospitals, and prisons. Under her direction the order spread between 1880 and 1910 from a single convent in her native Italy to an international institution, with 65 houses spread across Europe and the Americas and 1,500 sisters. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1909. Canonized in 1946, she is the first American saint.

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 Ida B. Wells-Barnet (1862–1931) : African American.  Journalist and civil rights activist. Ida B. Wells-Barnet devoted her life to drawing attention to the widespread practice of lynching—the murder of Blacks by mobs of whites—in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. She launched her crusade in 1892 in the pages of the Memphis, Tennessee, weekly newspaper, of which she was part owner. After a white mob destroyed her newspaper office, she moved to New York City, where she continued writing against lynching and carried her crusade on lecture tours of the United States and Britain.

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 Constitution Day : South Korea.  After the division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea at the end of World War II, South Korea formed a republic with its capital in Seoul and Syngman Rhee as its first president.

 Luis Muñoz Rivera (1859–1916) : Puerto Rico.  Poet, journalist, and political leader. When Spain granted political autonomy to Puerto Rico in 1898, Luis Muñoz Rivera became its leader. Only five months later, however, the United States invaded and took possession of the island, and Muñoz Rivera spent the rest of his life working to regain the independence of his nation. As Resident Commissioner in Washington in 1916, he denounced the proposed Jones Act, which was to give citizenship to Puerto Ricans but retain the island as a U.S. possession. The act was passed shortly after his death. (See entry for March 2.)

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 Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875–1935) : African American.  Author, teacher, and social worker. Briefly married to the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was an accomplished writer of poems and short stories, newspaper columns, diaries, and speeches. Her career as an educator included 18 years of teaching and administration at Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware, and 4 years at a school she helped to found for delinquent African American girls. Deeply committed to racial equality, women's rights, and world peace, she devoted much of her energy to writing, lecturing, and political organizing in support of these causes.

 First Special Olympics Games (1968) : People with Disabilities, United States.  On this date the first Special Olympics, an athletic competition for children and adults with cognitive disabilities, opened at Soldiers Field in Chicago. The first Special Olympics had 1,000 participants from the United States and Canada; by 1995, this competition had expanded to include Winter Special Olympics (added in 1977) and to involve 7,000 participants from all 50 states and 143 countries. The program of events has also grown dramatically, from three at the first Special Olympics to more than twenty. The international competition is held in the year before the regular Olympics.

 National Liberation Day : Nicaragua.  The family of Anastasio Somoza ruled Nicaragua as a dictatorship from 1937 to 1979. After an uprising led by the National Liberation Army, the Somoza family fled Nicaragua on this day in 1979.

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 Independence Day : Colombia.  Beginning in the fourteenth century, the region that is now Colombia was the center of the Spanish colony known as New Granada, which included Panama and most of Venezuela. Beginning in 1810, Simón Bolívar led a war of independence from Spain, which ended with his victory over Spanish forces on this day in 1819. This day is celebrated in Colombia as a national holiday.

 Marine Day : Japan.  Public holiday. (m)

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 National Holiday : Belgium.  This marks the day in 1831 that Belgium became independent from the Netherlands and Leopold I ascended the throne as Belgium's first king.

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 Revolution Day : Egypt.  This day marks the beginning of the military coup in 1952 that led to the proclamation of the Egyptian republic.

 Birthday of Haile Selassie : Rastafarian.  One of the holiest days of the year for Rastafarians, this holiday celebrates the birthday of Emperor Haile Selassie (1892–1975) of Ethiopia, who is revered by the Rastafarians as a descendant of King Solomon and is believed to be the incarnation of God. The Rastafarian faith began in Jamaica in the 1920s, having its roots in the philosophy of Marcus Garvey, with his “back to Africa” movement and belief that a Black king would one day become redeemer of the Black people. In 1930, when the Ethiopian Coptic Christian prince, Ras Tafari Makonnen, was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I, this was believed to be the fulfillment of Garvey’s prophecy.

Emperor Haile Selassie’s pre-coronation name of Ras Tafari was taken as the official name of this budding religious movement, which has links with the Judeo-Christian tradition and strong political undercurrents as well. Rastafarians believe that they are the reincarnation of the ancient tribes of Israel alleged to have originated in Africa. Enslaved and kept in exile by their white oppressors in Babylon, the land of corruption and spiritual darkness, Rastafarians believe that the salvation of Black people will come through repatriation to Zion, or Africa, led by their messiah, Ras Tafari. Thus Africa, and in particular Ethiopia, is the spiritual homeland of Rastafarianism.

There is no formal Rastafarian church, as it is a highly individual form of worship. Rastafarianism teaches the concept of I and I: that God is within all of us and we are one people. The Rastafarians have transformed Jamaican reggae music into their own unique vehicle for worshipping God and expressing political views, with such themes as repatriation to Africa and the collapse of Babylon. Rasta lyrics often use the prefix “I” to signal spiritual unity; for example, I-nity means “unity,” and I-dren means “brethren.” Rastafarianism is largely a brotherhood, where women play a subordinate role. The brethren are known for plaiting their hair into dreadlocks (a dread is one who fears Jah, the God of Abraham) and wearing red, black, green, and yellow caps: red symbolizing the blood shed in the struggle of Black people, black representing the color of the skin of the chosen people, green representing the beauty and vegetation in their future homeland of Ethiopia, with yellow or gold symbolizing the wealth of their homeland. True Rastafarians are vegetarians, and favor organic farming and a life in harmony with Jah. The Rastafarian faith supports the smoking of ganga (marijuana), the “holy herb” used to reach an altered state of consciousness where it will be revealed that Haile Selassie is God, although this practice remains unlawful in the United States and the United Kingdom.

On April 21, 1966, Emperor Haile Selassie visited Jamaica, entreating the Rastafarians not to seek to emigrate to Ethiopia until they had first liberated Jamaica. From that day on, April 21 has been celebrated as a special holy day among Rastafarians. Most Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie is still alive, and that reports of his death were part of a conspiracy to discredit their religion. Today Rastafarians number in the hundreds of thousands, and live on other Caribbean islands in addition to Jamaica, as well as in cities in the United States, Canada, and a number of Western European nations. Rastafarians follow the Ethiopian calendar, which is based on the calendar of the Coptic Orthodox Church, with Christmas observed on January 7 and New Year’s observed on September 11.

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 Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) : Ecuador, Venezuela.  Military and political leader. This public holiday honors Bolívar. Known as "The Liberator," Simón Bolívar led the rebellion against Spanish rule that established the independence of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

 Pioneer Day : The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This marks the day in 1847 that Brigham Young led other believers in the teachings of Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, where they would establish the center of their church and build Salt Lake City.

Recognizing the Festival/Holiday: This is a day that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will often attend church and listen to the commemoration activities from the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. These may include speeches by church elders and music by the church’s Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square.

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 Constitution Day : Puerto Rico.  The constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was approved in 1952 on this day, which is now commemorated each year with official government ceremonies.

 Republic Day : Tunisia.  This day commemorates the end of the Tunisian monarchy and the establishment of a republic in 1957.

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 Hector P. Garcia (1914–1996) : Hispanic American.  Medical doctor and civil rights activist. Dr. Garcia practiced medicine in Corpus Christi, Texas, after receiving his medical degree from the University of Texas. He was also involved in the civil rights movement for Hispanic Americans, and in 1948 founded the American G.I. Forum, a national advocacy organization for Mexican American war veterans. In 1968, he became the first Hispanic to serve on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and in 1984, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the day of his death at age 82.

 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) : People with Disabilities, United States.  Signed into law on this date, this milestone of U.S. civil rights legislation protects people with disabilities from discrimination in the areas of employment, transportation, and public accommodation. (Earlier legislation had addressed discrimination in housing.) The law requires a wide range of public and private establishments to make new and renovated facilities accessible to people with disabilities and to make "readily achievable" changes to existing facilities in order to increase accessibility.

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 José Celso Barbosa's Birthday : Puerto Rico.  This is a public holiday honoring Barbosa, a doctor and a politician born on this day in 1857. In 1899, he founded the Republican Party of Puerto Rico that advocated statehood for the island.

 Qaid-i-Azam's Birthday celebrated (public holiday) (see December 25 for actual birthday) : Pakistan.  

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 Independence Day celebrated : Peru.  Public holiday. (See entry for December 9.)

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 Seventh Night (Ch'i-hsi) : China.  Seventh Night (Ch'i-hsi), or Weaving Maid and Herd Boy Festival, is a romantic festival based on a tale of a couple who disobeyed the chief deity and are, therefore, held in the sky as stars on either side of the Milky Way. On this night, magpies fly up from earth and join their wings to form a bridge over the Milky Way so that the lovers can meet. (m)

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