It's a Jolly Holiday in August Quiz

Answer: International Clown Week (August 1-7)

Coulrophobia is the pathological fear of clowns.

Bill "Boom-Boom" Baily, Chairman of National Clown Week for Clowns of America, with some fellow clowns (in costumed) visited upon the Senate in 1970. Then Congress passed a joint resolution (Public law 91-443), signed by President Nixon in 1971, to make August 1-7 an annual National Clown Week. When the organization renamed itself Clowns of America International, it re-designated the holiday as International Clown Week in 1991.

Since then, more than 10,000 clowns in various organizations worldwide participate annually, putting on shows in malls, nursing homes, hospitals, and child-care facilities. Some communities hold parades, teach-ins, and fundraisers for charity.

Clowns International (UK) is the oldest international clown organization, while the world Clown Association (USA) is the largest. In the UK and in the USA, clowns' faces are recorded on eggs for posterity, in the Clown Egg Register.

Answer: Ekka

More than 400,000 people come to the Brisbane Showgrounds annually for Ekka, a 10-days' festival that begins every first Friday after the 5th of August.

Ekka is primarily an agricultural show, comparable to State Fairs in the USA, and like them it features a sideshow alley (midway) with amusement park rides and booths hawked by showies (carnies). There are also fashion parades, and of course, prize-winning animals (cattle breeds, show dogs, horses, sheep, and sheepdogs) and delicious food, including the iconic Strawberry Sundae. During Ekka, the Exhibition Railway Line operates special historic steam trains that run through the middle of the showgrounds.

Brisbane residents get a public holiday on a Wednesday during Ekka, called "People's Day". Ekka is called "Queensland's largest classroom" because of the number of field trips taken by students during the festival.

Ekka has existed since 1876. In the early days, it was a time to show off not only animals but also inventions and technological achievements. The popular timber bridge built by saw-miller William Pettigrew and cutting-edge plows and harvesters (no pun intended) were a real hit in the nineteenth and early centuries! And sideshow alley was actually a place of sideshows, with Barnum-type "freaks", strongmen, and tricky magicians.

Answer: Infinity

An '8' placed upon its side gives you the symbol for infinity -- ∞ -- and so, the 8th day of the 8th month.

Universal & International Infinity Day (its complete name) is the brainchild of Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, who became famous in the late 1980s as the Original New York City Free Advice Man, for he gave free advice on the sidewalks of Manhattan. Fenyo, a poet, philosopher, and science fiction author, promoted it as a day for free expression, non-violent demonstration, and civilized ethical and philosophical debate and discussion. Infinity Day has spread worldwide, though it gets the most notice in the USA and Europe, so maybe it isn't quite "Universal" yet.

Zeno's paradoxes are a famous set of philosophical problems that explore infinitude.

Answer: National Honey Bee Day

Beekeepers in the USA began this day to build community within the beekeeping industry, and to educate people about the importance of bees and beekeepers (and to promote honey). The day received an official proclamation from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas J. Vilsek, in 2009, but an NGO (Pennsylvania Apiculture Inc.) has taken charge of organizing the holiday since.

A single worker bee will gather just half a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. For a pound of honey, bees must travel about 55,000 miles (89,000 km) and gather nectar from two million flowers! They do this by flapping their wings at an exhausting 11,400 beats per minute, to travel about 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). Around ten pounds (5 kg) of nectar yield but one pound (450 g) of honey.

There is also a U.N. World Bee Day held on May 8 every way to promote global awareness of bees and their crucial pollination of our fruits and vegetables. We would literally die without honeybees, so they are certainly worth celebrating!

Answer: Women gained the right to vote nationally (ratification of Amendment XIX)

Thirty-five of the needed thirty-six states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which would prohibit the denial of "the right of citizens of the United States...on account of sex". When it came time to vote in Tennessee, pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage forces mobbed the capital Nashville. A 24-year-old legislator named Harry Burn had voted against women's suffrage up to then, but his mother had urged him to change his mind. When he saw the vote was close, and his negative vote would force a tie, he listened to his mother, changed his vote, and the Amendment was ratified. The governor, who had opposed it, stalled...but eight days later, on August 26 he notified Congress, and the Amendment became the law of the land.

The 26th of August also commemorates a nationwide demonstration for equal pay, the Women's Strike for Equality, in 1970. Betty Friedan, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), called for women to stop working on the 50th anniversary of the passage of Nineteenth Amendment to call attention to the problem of unequal pay. Demonstrations and marches in over 90 cites made the strike the largest nationwide protest for women's rights in the USA at the time.

Answer: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony

Since 1947, at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a ceremony has been held annually on August 6, the day Hiroshima, Japan became the first city to experience a nuclear attack. The names of those who died from the atomic bomb are read out loud, and a bell is rung at 8:15 a.m. (the time Enola Gay dropped the bomb on the city). Doves are released, and prayers are said for world peace.

Many other cities around the world hold ceremonies and a ring a bell at the same time. In August 2016, for the first time ever the President of the United States attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony.

Answer: Assumption Day

Assumption Day refers to the Catholic and Orthodox belief that the Virgin Mary was assumed into Heaven, body and soul. The date was fixed as August 15 around A.D. 700.

Some Italians, especially in Rome, call it Ferragosto, from Feriae Augusti ("Festivities of Augustus"). Near the Tiber river and along the seashore at Ostia and Fregene are fireworks displays and live concerts. And there are of course sermons and benedictions by the Pope in Vatican City, not to mention processions.

In Sicily and in rural areas outside Rome, the procession is the central event. The townspeople parade a statue of the Virgin Mary to a ceremonial arch of flowers, where another group of people holding a statue of Christ await her arrival. Both statues are inclined toward each other three times, as if bowing, and then both figures are carried (with Christ in front) back to the local church for a special benediction.

In olden days, Italian plazas were flooded. Citizens would ride through the temporary "lakes" in carriages and it was common for people to carry bowls of rose-scented water, which they sprinkled on themselves.

Outside Italy, Assumption day is also one for celebrating one's Italian heritage. For example, in a large Italian-American neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, there is a four-day street festival, held since 1898, with everything from fireworks to rides to music to casino games (and I don't mean Bingo).

Assumption Day is also the Fête Nationale (National Day) of French-speaking descendants of Canadian settlers known as Acadians, whose patron saint is Mary herself. So many businesses close in parts of New Brunswick, Canada.

Besides Italy, August 15 is a national holiday in scores of countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa (e.g. Cameroon, Madagascar, Mauritius), and Oceania (e.g. Vanuatu, Tahiti).

Answer: True

August 8 is also Canada's National Cat Day, while its neighbor to the south celebrates its national cat day on October 29.

Brian Davies found IFAW to end commercial hunting of baby whitecoat harp seals on Canada's east coast. IFAW has also been instrumental in the banning of trade in elephant ivory and in bringing veterinary care to poor areas of South Africa. IN 2003, after IFAW saved 24 tigers from a backyard zoo in New Jersey, the publicity led to the passage of the Captive Wildlife Safety Act in the USA. IFAW has worked with INTERPOL and the Kenya Wildlife Service to combat global wildlife crime. In 2020, IFAW allied with World Central Kitchen to distribute tens of thousands of pounds of food for dogs, cats, chickens, and other animals to families and individuals affected by the the COVID-19 pandemic.

Answer: Haitian Uprising

In 1791, on the French colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, the slaves revolted. Ultimately, the revolution led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade that operated from the 16th to the 19th centuries -- a triangular trade of slaves, cash crops (sugar, tobacco, cotton), and textiles, rum, and manufactured goods between the Americas, Europe, and West Africa. Haiti is the only successful slave revolt in history.

Answer: Bat

The European Bat Nights of Poland and France in the 1990s have become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to EUROBATS. A European bat conservation group, EUROBATS educates people about the wonderful benefits of these flying mammals. (For example, if you enjoy being outside in the summer, did you know that bats make the evening more pleasant by eating up to 1,100 mosquitoes per hour?) EUROBATS corrects misguided myths about bats and works to preserve and increase the population of these fascinating creatures. EUROBATS started International Bat Night in 1997, and by 2020 more than 30 countries were participating. To celebrate, attend an educational seminar, film, or slideshow about bats, join a workshop on building bat houses, or take a Bat Walk led by a bat conservation guide. Don't know where to find any of these? The EUROBATS website has a searchable list of events!

While bats are found on every continent except Antarctica, lemurs are only on the island of Madagascar, pangolins only in sub-Saharan Africa, and wombats only in Australia.