Christmas Day is officially over and a new year begins. For the holidays, I bought a relative one of those popular new calendars which feature a “fun day” item listed for all 365 days of the year. Example: April 17, National Haiku Poem Day. July 20, National Chess Day. October 25, National Pasta Day. Etc. 

As another relative once asked, “Who decides on these things?” Some items may be legit. Some may just be whimsical. But all of them, in a way, prod one’s imagination, a skill noticeably weakened in the modern-era of cell phones, social media, and Hollywood movies stuffed with fake super-heroes. 

This calendar also reminded me, oddly enough, of the late actor Michael Constantine, who played the proud Greek father in the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. (Not a stretch: He was a real-life Greek American, and proud of it.) A running joke in the film was the father constantly finding a Greek connection to every idea, item, or famous historical figure he ran across. As with these new calendars, some observations were true, others fantastical. 

Italian Americans rarely play this game. I wish I could attribute this to a quiet, genuine sense of Italic pride – so much so that they don’t feel the need for such braggadocio. (Incidentally, this word for a boastful person isn’t of Italian origin; it was created by the English poet Edmund Spenser for a character in his 1594 work, The Faerie Queene). Alas, this is not the case. It’s my experience that this lack of even mild chest-beating is borne out of good, old-fashioned ignorance. And I mean that word in its proper sense – not ignorant as in “stupid” but as in “not knowing, or being unaware of something.” 

A quick look at the month of January, for example, shows many connections to Italic culture, however far-fetched they might seem at first.

Monday, January 2nd is Science Fiction Day. Check it out: On January 5th, 2011, the Guinness Book of World Records honored sci-fi author Christopher Paolini as the “youngest author of a best-selling book series.” He was only 19 years old when his book Eragon topped the New York Times’ book list.

Wednesday, January 4th is Spaghetti Day. D-uh! No brainer. The idea that pasta was introduced to Italy by Marco Polo when he returned from China has been discounted very thoroughly over the past decades, though it still seems to persist. But durum wheat was a staple of the Italic diet in classical Rome.

Friday, January 6th is Cuddle Up Day and Saturday, January 21st is Hugging Day. Two peas in a pod; basically, both reiterate would should be obvious to the world by now: Italians view touching as a basic impulse of human interaction, no strings attached. Though Americans have certainly lightened up over the decades via destigmatizing public displays of emotion (Sen. Ed Muskie’s 1972 presidential campaign was derailed when he cried in public, which the public saw as weakness), we are still very much a Puritan-inspired society, rooted in Protestant stoicism. 

Yet who made a dent in this arena? Leo “Dr. Love” Buscaglia, the dynamic 1980s public speaker who gave his fans hugs instead of autographs. 

Wednesday, January 18th is Thesaurus Day. Ah yes, printing. Aldus Pius Manutius (Teobaldo Mannucci, 1449-1515) was a pioneering Venetian publisher who created new typefaces as well as the first modern publishing house, the Aldine Press, and the “portable book”. He is as important to the printed word as Guttenberg. 

Australia Day is on Thursday, January 26th. What do Italians have to do with the Land Down Under? As of post-WWI and post-WWII, quite a lot. Though there were less than 1,000 Italian immigrants in that vast continent for much of the 19th century, things changed when the U.S. Congress put severe limits on Italian migration via its 1924 anti-immigration act. Barred Italians then flowed toward the Pacific Ocean rather than the Atlantic. Ditto after WWII. 

Tuesday, January 31st is Backward Day. Hah! Good word to describe how our media views Americans of Italian descent. They ignore all of the above. 

Still: No applause or New Year’s Eve horns, please! I am no genius. I simply accrued these factoids gradually, over the days and years. 

Yet there’s a quicker and easier way for readers to one-up both me and that proud Greek father: Visit the Italic Institute of America’s ALMANAC (below).

Culled from over 30 years of research (the Institute was founded in 1987), the ALMANAC is located on the Home Page of the IIA’s website. 

Go to https://www.italic.org, then on your top left, click on the ALMANAC icon. What you will see are the twelve days of the calendar year. Click on any month and behold the cascade of historical facts and figures that fall at your fingertips. The depth of Italic achievements will stun and amaze you. 

Even that Greek father would offer you the use of his Windex bottle to clean the computer screen. The clarity of the ALMANAC speaks for itself. Enjoy! -BDC