January 4 Holidays

National Spaghetti Day celebrates the long, cylindrical pasta whose name comes from the Italian “spago” (string) — central to Neapolitan identity since the 17th century and consumed at an estimated 28 billion servings annually worldwide. National Trivia Day celebrates trivia — the obscure facts that human memory retains with far more fidelity than useful information — encouraging quiz nights, board games, and the competitively useless knowledge that makes pub trivia an enduring social format. National Missouri Day celebrates Missouri — admitted to the Union on August 10, 1821, as the 24th state — and its contributions to American history as the gateway to the West. Handsel Monday is a Scottish and Northern English tradition observed on the first Monday of the new year, in which the first visitor of the day brings a small gift or coin — a “handsel” — symbolizing good fortune for the year ahead.