Important Days in May and June: Dates and Facts

Questions on important days are the cheapest marks in a general knowledge paper, because the answer is a single number and the number never changes. What does change is the theme announced each year, so an examiner rarely asks for a theme; the paper asks the date, or asks which day falls on a given date, or asks whose birth anniversary is marked by an observance. May and June carry two of the biggest days in the calendar, World Environment Day and the International Day of Yoga, and a set of Indian days, National Technology Day and Statistics Day among them, that examiners like because they carry a story.

Important days in May

May opens with International Labour Day on 1 May, which is also the foundation day of Maharashtra and Gujarat, the two states created on that date in 1960. World Press Freedom Day falls on 3 May and World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day on 8 May, the birth anniversary of Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross movement and the first Nobel Peace Prize winner; 8 May is also World Thalassaemia Day. National Technology Day on 11 May marks the Pokhran nuclear tests of 1998 and the other technological achievements announced in India on the same day. International Nurses Day on 12 May is the birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on 17 May marks the founding of the International Telecommunication Union in 1865. Anti-Terrorism Day on 21 May is observed in India on the anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The month ends with the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, Everest Day on 29 May, marking the first ascent by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers on the same date, and World No Tobacco Day on 31 May.

Important days in June

June belongs to the environment. World Environment Day on 5 June was set up by the United Nations General Assembly after the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 and has been observed since 1973; it is the most frequently asked day of the month. World Oceans Day follows on 8 June and the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on 17 June. The International Day of Yoga on 21 June was proposed by India at the United Nations in 2014; the General Assembly adopted the resolution in December that year and the first observance was in 2015. The date was chosen because it is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. World Blood Donor Day on 14 June is the birth anniversary of Karl Landsteiner, who discovered the ABO blood groups. World Refugee Day falls on 20 June, the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on 26 June, and National Statistics Day in India on 29 June, the birth anniversary of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.

The days with a person behind them

Four of the observances in these two months are birth anniversaries, and that connection is asked as often as the date itself. 8 May is Henry Dunant's, 12 May is Florence Nightingale's, 14 June is Karl Landsteiner's and 29 June is P. C. Mahalanobis's. Two more are anniversaries of events: 11 May recalls the nuclear tests of 1998 and 21 May the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Note also the days that move with the week rather than the date, such as Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May and Father's Day on the third Sunday of June, because a question may ask for the rule and not for a number.

How to revise this chapter

Revise these two months as one list of about thirty rows, not as two separate months, because the paper mixes them. Say each date with its day aloud, then test yourself in the other direction by naming the date for a given day. Keep a separate short list of the Indian days, which are 1 May for Maharashtra and Gujarat, 11 May for technology, 21 May for anti-terrorism and 29 June for statistics; state examinations favour these over the international ones.