In April of 1951, Israel's Parliament, the "Knesset", selected this day as "Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah", in Hebrew meaning "Day of the Holocaust and the Heroism". Although the date was established by the Israeli government, it has become a day commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide.
Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day was made formal in a law enacted by the Knesset on August 19, 1952.
Today is also International Beaver Day, No Housework Day (yay!), and World Health Organization Day!
Here are some interesting things that happened on this day in history:
- Michael Cardozo became the first Jewish lawyer in Brazil in 1645
- The first Canadian postage stamps were issued in 1851: a Twelve-Pence Black, showing Queen Victoria at the age of 19, a Three-Pence Beaver and a Six-Pence Prince Consort, which carried a portrait of Prince Albert. Also in 1851, political cartoonist John Bengough, founder of the satirical weekly Grip was born in Toronto
- Sherlock Holmes began his adventure, "Yellow Face" in 1888
- The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was completed to Nechako, BC in 1914. The first train arrived at Prince Rupert on April 9
- Novelist Roger Lemelin, a pioneer of social realism in French Canada best known for Les Plouffe, was born in Québec City in 1919
- Artist Dorothy Knowles was born in Unity, Saskatchewan in 1927
- The Nazis barred Jews from legal & public service in 1933
- Booker T. Washington became the first black man to appear on a US postage stamp in 1940
- The World Health Organization formed in 1948
- A few days into the referendum campaign in 1980, more than 12 000 people gathered at the Montréal Forum to protest Cabinet Minister Lise Payette’s assertions that women voting no, including Claude Ryan’s wife, were “Yvettes,” referring to a submissive elementary schoolbook character. Payette offended both feminists and women who were proud to be Yvettes, and inadvertently mobilized an army of opposition. It was a decisive event in the campaign.
- The Vatican acknowledged the Holocaust for the first time in 1994
Stay tuned for our next, "On This Day in History"!
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