May 24 – Bermuda Day

Posted on May 24, 2019

(Usually the last Friday in May)

May 24 is the birthday of Britain's Queen Victoria, and people in Bermuda, living in a self-governing British territory, celebrated that birthday.

For a while May 24 was Empire Day, celebrated all over the British Empire. 

Of course, after World War II, the British Empire broke apart, and the former British colonies and protectorates became part of the Commonwealth. Some countries still celebrate May 24 as Commonwealth Day (although other nations celebrate Commonwealth Day on the second Monday in March). 

At some point Bermuda started celebrating May 24 as Bermuda Day - and, unofficially, as the start of summer! 

But, starting in 2018, Bermuda Day is supposed to be held on the last Friday of May. This year, the last Friday is May 31...

But for some unexplained reason, according to three different sources that I checked, in 2019 Bermuda Day is today, May 24 - the second to the last Friday of May! Confusing!!

So...what is Bermuda Day?

Mostly a day of races and parades. The Bermuda Heritage Parade, held in the morning, is a biggie for many people, and a 13-mile-long Marathon Derby that ends at the ocean is somehow a part of that parade (!?). 

Other races include a bicycling race and a dinghy (small boat) race. I have heard that there is commonly an afternoon parade as well!

Bermuda is a nice place to celebrate the start of summer:

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the publishing of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” 

Musician Bob Dylan's birthday

International Tiara Day

Queen Victoria's birthday

Day of Slavic Script, Education, and Culture

Botanist Ynes Mexia's birthday

Morse Code Day

Independence Day in Eritrea

Commonwealth Day in Belize

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• May holidays 
• May birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in May
  

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• June holidays
• June birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in June

April 25, 2012 - Peppercorn Day in Bermuda

This is one of the odder of the Caribbean holidays: Every year in Bermuda's largest city (St. George) pomp and circumstance surrounds an event that would seem to be very ordinary, even boring: collecting rent.

A horse-drawn carriage brings the governor to the Old State House to collect this “rent,” which is not a sum of money, but is instead a single peppercorn!

This goes back to the old days of 1797, when a group of Freemasons began renting the Old State House for the sum of a peppercorn. St. George used to be the capital city of Bermuda, but in the late 1700s the parliament decided to build a new capital city.

Do you know where Bermuda is?

Earlier I referred to Bermuda as being a Caribbean island—but really it's pretty far north of the Caribbean Sea. It's about 600 miles due east from North Carolina, well into the Atlantic Ocean. (Check out the map below.)

So why is it often referred to as a Caribbean island?

Historically and culturally Bermuda, along with other not-actually-in-the-Caribbean islands such as the Bahamas, is linked with islands that ARE in the Caribbean Sea. One example is that many black people from the Eastern Caribbean islands migrated to Bermuda in the early 1900s, bringing their culture and foods.

By the way, Bermuda isn't a fully independent nation; instead, it is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. But that didn't stop it being included in the Animaniac's "Nations of the World" Song. 

(A less fuzzy version of the song can be found here—but the country names are missing from this version, which is too bad. Lyrics can be found here.)

What's the Bermuda Triangle?

Basically, the Bermuda Triangle is pseudoscience. What I mean by that is that it is nonsense, hokum, baloney, hogwash, and poppycock!

The Bermuda Triangle is a geographical area of the Atlantic Ocean that is supposed to be the site where an unexplainable number of airplanes and boats have disappeared in such mysterious circumstances that people were sure that ghosts or aliens or magic had to be the cause. However, studies have shown that a lot of the reports given by Bermuda-Triangle promoters were incorrect or “fudged”—by which I mean lied about, to make a point. In actual fact, some planes have gone down in the area, sadly, and some ships have sunk. But the numbers of tragedies there are no more than any other area of the ocean.

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the first seeing-eye dog in the U.S. 

World Penguin Day