This date marks the assassination of former UN journalist Alec Collet in 1985 who was working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Journalist Alec Collett

His body was found in 2009 in the Lebanon Bekaa Valley. According to the United Nations website the International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members is taking increasing importance every year because “attacks against the United Nations intensify.” Over the years, many UN personnel have been kidnapped and detained in work-related tasks. According to UN’s Department of Safety and Security 28 UN staff members were arrested in 2010.

Today is World Tuberculosis Day.

Untill the year 1882 one in seven of the world’s people were dying of tuberculosis. Then, a German physician, Robert Koch, discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. Today’s date commemorates that day.

Currently, one-third of the world’s population is infected with TB. However, thanks to Robert Koch, there now are effective ways of treating the infection. Unfortunately, this cure  isn’t available to everyone, and approximately 1.7 million people still die of tuberculosis every year.

This year’s theme for World TB Day is the question: how can African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States (ACP Countries) strengthen each other and fight together against tuberculosis. World’s Healthy Organization (WHO) and Stop TB Partnership both support this day.

This year is the second year the world celebrates Right to Truth Day, or in other words ‘International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims.’

Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero

This day was declared an official UN observance day in December 2010. March 24th was chosen to mark a date in 1980 when archbishop Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero, an active promoter of human rights, was murdered while conducting a service at church in El Salvador.

The purpose of this day is to honor the memory of those who have experienced severe human rights violations, those who have spent their lives protecting these rights, and to highlight everybody’s right to truth and justice…

Today is the 62nd year the world celebrates World Meteorological Day! This date, March 23rd, marks the establishment of the World Meteorological Organization in 1951.

The WMO was established because climate and water are shared by everyone on this planet, thus international cooperation is essential in order for earth sciences to develop. WMO is a part of the United Nations and functions as their authoritative voice in water, climate, and weather related hazards.

The world is thirsty because it is hungry!

World Water Day 2012

This is the slogan for World Water Day 2012. According to unwater.org “it takes one thousand times more water to feed the human population than it does to satisfy its thirst.” This year’s theme is water and food security. Watch this clip to find out how many liters it takes to produce one kilo of beef…

SMILE    😆   

Smiling is infectious
You catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today
I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner
And someone saw my grin,
When he smiled I realised,
I’d passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile
Then realised its worth,
A single SMILE just like mine
Could travel round the earth.

So if you feel a smile begin
Don’t leave it undetected,
Let’s start an epidemic quick
And get the world infected.

Taken from the book  Golden Apples by Bill Cullen

Today is World Poetry Day!

First officially celebrated in the year 2000, World Poetry Day celebrates diversity of language, efforts of small publishers, and the return to oral traditions of poetry recitals. Poetry pays tribute to language by constantly questioning and re-questioning the meanings of words and our perceptions. Using the words of the Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, poetry “convey(s) a timeless message… and always reveals the original brilliance of culture.”

Surprisingly, March 21st is also the anniversary of Twitter! This Wednesday, thus, is a day that celebrates both the traditional, orally recited, connotative word, as well as the instant, pixel-built, abbreviated word…

Today’s date marks a day in 1960 when the police in South-Africa shot and killed 69 people in a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid pass laws. Although much of the legislation has changed since, millions of individuals and communities are still impaired by the injustice that racism inflicts.

Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, people around the world are reminded of the negative consequences of racial discrimination. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights famously says that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

We now live in the year 1391… according to the Islamic Hijri calendar!

Today is the Iranian New Year. In Farsi (the language spoken in Iran), this day is called Nowruz, which literally translated means ‘new day’ or ‘new light.’ Nowruz marks the first day of spring, thus begins the new year in the Hijri calendar.

“Everyone’s Irish on March 17th!” says a large sign at

A Shamrock has become the symbol of St. Patrick's Day

Dublin’s Guinness museum.

March 17th is, of course, St. Patrick’s Day, a day to honor the death of one of the world’s most popular saints.

St. Patrick was born in Roman Britain, and he has been accredited for bringing Christianity to Ireland. Not much is known of St. Patrick’s life but one of the most famous legends says that he used the Shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to teach the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish people.

Although the religious origins of the day are widely known, nowadays St. Patrick’s Day is also celebrated as a kind of Irish national day…