August 23 Holidays

National Cuban Sandwich Day celebrates the pressed sandwich of ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and roasted pork on Cuban bread — a creation of the Cuban immigrant community in Tampa, Florida, in the late 19th century, whose primacy is still contested with Miami. Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition was established by UNESCO to mark August 23, 1791, when enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) launched the uprising that began the Haitian Revolution — the only slave revolt in history to create a free nation, ending the transatlantic trade’s most profitable colony. European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism marks August 23, 1939, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact was signed — a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and enabled the invasions of Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states. Cheap Flight Day was created to encourage travelers to search for discounted airfares. A pressed sandwich, a 1791 uprising, a secret protocol, and a boarding pass.