June 29 Holidays

Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul is the Catholic and Orthodox feast honoring the martyrdom of the two founding apostles of the Roman Church — Peter, crucified upside down, and Paul, beheaded — both in Rome around 64–68 AD under Emperor Nero. International Day of the Tropics was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2016 to raise awareness for the challenges facing tropical regions — which span 40 percent of Earth’s surface, host more than 80 percent of its biodiversity, and are home to most of the world’s extreme poverty. National Camera Day celebrates the photographic camera — from Nicéphore Niépce’s 1826 first permanent photograph to the smartphone that now makes every human being a photographer. International Mud Day was founded in 2009 by Gillian McAuliffe of Australia and Bishnu Bhatta of Nepal to encourage children to play outside in mud — an act of sensory exploration linked to immune development and cognitive growth. Two martyrs, a tropical canopy, a lens, and a muddy child.