July 8 Holidays

National Video Game Day celebrates the interactive entertainment medium that has grown from Pong’s 1972 debut to a global industry worth more than $180 billion annually — now surpassing film and music combined. National Blueberry Day honors the North American native berry — one of the few blue foods that occurs naturally — whose antioxidant activity outranks nearly all other common fruits and whose commercial cultivation was pioneered by Elizabeth White and Frederick Coville in New Jersey in 1916. National Ice Cream Sundae Day marks the creation of the sundae — ice cream topped with sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry — attributed to a 1881 Ithaca, New York, drugstore that served the combination on Sundays when carbonated water was unavailable. National Freezer Pop Day celebrates the brightly colored frozen sugar water on a stick — a $300 million annual U.S. market sold under the brand names Fla-Vor-Ice and Otter Pops. Pixels, anthocyanins, a drugstore discovery, and a freeze-pop wrapper.