November 6 Holidays

National Nacho Day celebrates the tortilla chip and melted cheese combination invented by Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya in 1943 when he improvised a snack for American military wives at the Victory Club in Piedras Negras, Mexico — a creation that generated a $2 billion U.S. snack category. International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict was established by the UN General Assembly to mark November 6 as a day of awareness for the environmental destruction caused by warfare — from Agent Orange defoliation in Vietnam to oil well fires in Kuwait. Fountain Pen Day was established on the first Friday of November to celebrate the liquid-ink writing instrument — a technology first patented in 1827 whose advocates argue that only nib-on-paper handwriting produces the full expressive range of an individual’s script. National Basketball Day celebrates basketball — invented by Dr. James Naismith in December 1891 using peach baskets in a Springfield, Massachusetts gymnasium.