Most of the time, the special days we list here are not in any sense official holidays; they’re just for fun. Somebody decides that a certain day should be International Pipe Cleaner Day, and makes a public statement to that effect, and poof! A celebration is born. In this case, however, we’re talking about a date that the U.S. Congress declared, by a Joint Resolution passed on May 20, 1933, to be special: it’s National Maritime Day, observed on May 22 each year to commemorate the first successful transatlantic voyage by steamship—the Savannah set sail from Savannah, Georgia on this date in 1819 and arrived in Liverpool, England a mere 29 days later. (Hey, that would make a catchy name for a movie, no?) This date now celebrates the entire maritime industry.
