September 15 features a wide range of holidays and observances, some of them fairly unusual. First of all, of course, it’s global “Free Money Day.” The idea is simple; you just give away money (generally two bills or two coins) to strangers, or leave it someplace it will be found. You can share physically or digitally.
Free Money Day was established on the anniversary of the biggest bankruptcy filing in history, Lehman Brothers in 2008. As you’ll recall, that large organization of financial professionals lost the better part of a trillion dollars by running up, basically, big gambling debts. Although “big” isn’t really a big enough word to describe what they did. Lehman executives claimed various degrees of innocence and ignorance — which they probably wouldn’t have gotten away with in Azerbaijan, if only because September 15 is “Knowledge Day” there. It’s just what it sounds like; a day to celebrate learning. It originated in the USSR in 1984, and it’s associated with the beginning of the school year. It’s still celebrated in various countries, mostly in the Russian-speaking world, and to match an earlier school year, Knowledge Day is often September first rather than the fifteenth.
Speaking of knowledge, today is World Lymphoma Awareness Day. That’s a disease that people would do well to increase their knowledge about — in a recent global survey, 67% didn’t know that lymphoma is a form of cancer, nor than it has among the fastest growing incidence rate in the world. For that matter, half the respondents didn’t know what their own lymph nodes do. So if you’re participating in Free Money Day, maybe a lymphoma research fund would make a good recipient?
Although Knowledge is only celebrated on a single day, knowledge about the heritage of German Americans and Hispanic Americans is featured for a whole month; today is the beginning of German American Heritage Month AND Hispanic American Heritage Month.
If you study Hispanic American heritage, you’ll know that today is the “Cry of Dolores” in Mexico; it’s the eve of Independence Day there. The Cry of Dolores is a commemoration of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla ringing his church bell and giving the call to arms setting off the Mexican War of Independence. The President of Mexico will reenact it tonight, from the same balcony, ringing the same bell Hidalgo did in 1810.
And if you study German American heritage, you’ll know that today is the earliest possible day for Von Steuben Day. It’s not today this year, because today is not the third Saturday in September. Von Steuben Day commemorates Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who came from Germany to volunteer in the US Revolutionary War. He trained Washington’s troops. One of the biggest events of Von Steuben Day is the parade in New York City.
Von Steuben himself, being from Germany, almost certainly visited the Netherlands during his lifetime, and in his time September 15 was marked by celebrations of loyalty to the House of Orange. Nowadays it’s still called “Prinsjesdag” (Little Prince Day), but all the pomp and circumstance centers around the current monarch addressing the Dutch Senate and House of Representatives to set out the policy goals for the opening parliamentary season. There’s a parade involved in this too; the monarch (currently King Willem-Alexander) rides in a really spectacular golden coach from Noordeinde Palace to the “Binnenhof,” which in the US would be called the capitol building.
One oddity about Prinsjesdag is that the “Little Prince” was Prince William VI, who was crowned in 1751 at the age of 3 after his father died. So you might expect that Prinsjesdag commemorates his birthday — but it doesn’t; he was born in March. He was William VI when he was the Prince of Orange (his father’s title), but also became William I, King of the Netherlands, in 1815 after Napoleon was defeated (and you think today’s politics are complicated).
You may have noticed that several of the September 15 holidays, so far, have something to do with independence and governments that have things like representatives and presidents. That’s celebrated today too; it’s International Day of Democracy. It came about because of a United Nations resolution, and it applies in all UN member states. And speaking of independence, September 15 is Independence Day in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They all became independent of Spain on the same date in 1821. And remember the Cry of Dolores that started the Mexican War of Independence in 1810? That war wasn’t won until 1821; it was one of the events leading to the collapse of Spain’s global empire that made all those colonies independent countries. And take note of the year — Napoleon was involved in the whole chain of events too.
Trying to follow the politics of the 18th and 19th centuries is enough to turn your hair prematurely gray. But if it does, September 15 is for you; it’s Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. Or, really, it’s the earliest day Respect for the Aged Day can fall; it’s the third Monday in September (so this year it’s the 18th). Even though the Little Prince of the Netherlands began his reign when he was just three, though, he eventually would have qualified (if he’d ever traveled to Japan, which he didn’t) — he lived to be 71, having handed the crown down to his son William II just three years before. After starting out as the boss baby, he kept the job for another 65 years.
