July 14th is International City Ringer Day and Shark Awareness Day. On this day in the history of mankind, events of a completely different scale took place – from the barbaric massacre during the crusade to the appearance of the first Ukrainian football goal, from the storming of the Bastille to the letter that preceded the high-profile political assassination in Ukraine.
International Day of City Bell Ringers
This day falls every year on the second Monday in July, and is dedicated to a historic profession that for centuries provided communication between the government and the population, long before the advent of the press, radio and the Internet. Ringers or heralds played an important role in the life of medieval cities — they announced royal decrees, announced news, tax changes, quarantines, mobilizations, or public executions. Their voice was the source of official information, and their appearance and the bell with which they went were intended to attract the attention of the community.
Today is not formally recognized at the level of the UN or UNESCO, but is celebrated in countries with a preserved tradition of municipal heralds – in particular in Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and some cities in the USA. In many of these countries, heralds still exist in symbolic form as part of municipal protocol or historical reenactments.
This day has no centralized organization or general format of celebration. But its meaning lies in the recognition of the cultural role of professions that provided access to public information even before the age of mass media.
Interesting facts
In Great Britain, the official title of Official Town Crier is still used in more than 180 towns and cities, and some town criers are paid from the town budget. They wear 18th century uniforms, have bells and formally represent the local government at events.
One of the loudest announcers in the world, Alan Maire from Canada, has a record of 112.8 decibels, which corresponds to the volume of a circular saw. His voice was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.
In medieval cities, heralds often not only announced decrees, but also served as a kind of “walking newspapers”, because they also relayed local gossip, news about visits, marriages, and courts. They often had an additional profession — brewer, shopkeeper, bailiff, or tavern owner.
In the France of the time of Louis XIV, heralds worked at every town hall and royal court, had a fixed salary and acted as the only source of news for the illiterate population.
The first mentions of heralds in Kyiv appear in written documents of the 15th century. During the Cossack era, the role of heralds was often performed by church elders or elders who gathered the community near the bell tower.
In Japan, there were their analogues of heralds – “yobiko”, who walked around the neighborhoods and announced about fires, earthquakes or new taxes. They used a drum or a gong instead of a bell.
In some cities in the Netherlands, bell-announcing contests are still held, where loudness, diction, facial expressions, and acting skills are evaluated while announcing conventional news.
In 2023, the city of Truro in Great Britain officially handed over the position of Town Crier to a woman, Karen Jones, the first female town crier in the region’s 800 years of existence.
Shark Awareness Day
This day is designed to draw attention to the dangerous condition of these marine predators, which humanity has demonized and exterminated for decades. The purpose of this day is to change the attitude towards sharks, to explain their role in marine ecosystems and to emphasize the need for their protection. The initiative was launched by conservationists, scientists and organizations involved in ocean conservation — as a reaction to the mass destruction of sharks in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Sharks have traditionally been perceived as a threat to humans, especially under the influence of popular culture – in particular the 1975 film “Jaws”, which created the image of an aggressive killer from the deep. This distorted perception has contributed to the extinction of millions of sharks, even though most of them are not dangerous to humans. On the contrary, it is humans who kill more than 100 million sharks every year – for meat, cartilage, fat, teeth and fins. The most cruel form of hunting is the so-called “finning” – when the fins of the caught shark are cut off, and the rest of the body is thrown overboard while still alive.
Sharks are killed mainly not for survival, but because of the demand for delicacies (for example, fin soup), fetishization of shark teeth or cartilage pseudomedicines. This practice has catastrophic consequences for marine ecosystems. Sharks are top predators that regulate the numbers of other species and ensure balance in the food chain. Their disappearance can cause the collapse of entire ecosystems: for example, the growth of predatory fish populations that destroy the grassy algae on which other species depend.
Interesting facts
Despite their reputation, sharks kill an average of 5-10 people a year worldwide. By comparison, there are over 20 cows, over 700,000 mosquitoes, and millions of humans.
Some species of sharks have existed for over 400 million years. They survived dinosaurs, ice ages and global catastrophes. The Greenland shark can live for over 400 years and is the oldest known vertebrate.
In the movie Jaws, which caused global hysteria, the shark is depicted as a man-eater who preys on purpose. In fact, sharks do not hunt humans – most attacks occur due to mistaken identity (a person is mistaken for a seal).
More than 70% of shark species are threatened with extinction. Even large sharks such as tiger sharks, whale sharks and white sharks are on the list of most vulnerable.
China is the largest consumer of shark fins, but consumption fell by more than 80% after the 2010-2014 campaigns. This happened after a documentary film, which for the first time revealed to the Chinese the brutal truth about fining.
Sharks have an exceptional sensory system. For example, they are able to pick up the electrical impulses of the victim’s heart at a distance of up to 1 meter, and some can hear a drop of blood in 100 liters of water.
Some species of sharks are born fully capable of hunting. For example, tiger shark embryos eat their weaker siblings while still in the womb.
Australia, South Africa and the United States are leaders in the number of incidents between sharks and humans, but even in these countries the chances of being bitten are slim: lower than the probability of death from a falling coconut.
Historical events on this day
1099 — Participants of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem after a siege that lasted more than a month. Christian knights who reached the city under the banner of the liberation of the Holy Land staged a brutal massacre – according to various estimates, up to 40,000 people were killed. Among the dead were both Muslims and Jews. Mosques and synagogues were set on fire, people were killed indiscriminately, even in shrines. The capture of Jerusalem became the culmination of the first crusade and a symbol not only of religious fanaticism, but also of ruthless violence under the guise of faith.
1789 — In Paris, angry townspeople, artisans and the unemployed, incited by rising bread prices, the economic crisis and dissatisfaction with absolutism, seized the fortress-prison Bastille. There were not many prisoners there, but the symbolic value of the fall of the Bastille was huge – the fortress was considered the embodiment of royal despotism. This day became the beginning of the Great French Revolution, and later – the national holiday of France, the birthday of the republic.
1894 — A historic event for Ukrainian sports took place in Lviv — the first officially recorded football match. The teams of Lviv and Krakow met on the field, and already in the 6th minute of the game, Volodymyr Khomytskyi scored the first goal in the history of Ukrainian football. The match did not last long – only 6 minutes, because the game was a demonstration during a general sports holiday. Despite this, he laid the foundation for the development of football as part of the national culture.
1933 — The American studio of the Fleischer brothers released the first animated film about the sailor Popeye. The comic book hero, known for his love of spinach and gruff kindness, made his first screen appearance on this day. Popeye quickly became a cultural symbol of American pop culture in the 1930s and had quite an impact on children’s perception of nutrition – after his appearance, the sale of spinach in the US skyrocketed.
1945 — At the very end of the Second World War, the newly formed government of the Kingdom of Italy declared war on Japan. After the overthrow of Mussolini’s fascist regime and Italy’s surrender to the Allies in 1943, the new government sought to demonstrate loyalty to the anti-Hitler coalition. Japan’s formal declaration of war was mostly symbolic, because Italy did not have time to join the active hostilities.
1969 — An armed conflict broke out between El Salvador and Honduras, which went down in history as the “football war.” Formally, the reason was football – a tense series of matches as part of the qualification for the 1970 World Cup. But the real reason was the escalation of social and political contradictions, in particular the agrarian crisis and the resettlement of Salvadorans to the border regions of Honduras. The war lasted only 100 hours, but took the lives of more than 2,000 people.
2000 — Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze sent an official letter to the Prosecutor General Mykhailo Potebenka, in which he informed about surveillance by the police and unknown persons. In the letter, he stated that his life was in danger and asked to take measures. This document became a key piece of evidence before further events – in two months, Gongadze disappeared, and later his body was found in the forest. His death became the beginning of a large-scale political crisis in Ukraine and a symbol of the struggle for freedom of speech.
Bastille Day
On July 14, 1789, the Bastille fell. The word “Bastille” translated from French means “fortification” or “bastion”. This fortress was built in the 1370s, during the Hundred Years’ War, as part of the defense system of the eastern suburbs of Paris. Its main purpose is to deter the enemy on the approaches to the capital. However, history proved the futility of this plan: it did not stop the English and Burgundians, and the French themselves stormed the Bastille at least three times throughout their turbulent history.
Later, the fortification lost its defensive significance and turned into a royal castle. Part of the state treasury was kept here, delegations of foreign monarchs stopped. But the Bastille gained real fame as a prison – that’s how it was used by Cardinal Richelieu in the 17th century. A warrant with the royal seal was enough, and a person could be imprisoned without a trial. In the Bastille, not only oppositionists were kept, but also the mentally ill, inconvenient relatives or political “outcasts” in the eyes of the royal court.
Paradoxically, the conditions of imprisonment were quite mild. The king ordered that each prisoner be paid 10 livres per day – the amount was enough for a full meal, and sometimes they were even asked to give half “in hand” after release. Prisoners were allowed to read, drink, smoke. The prison was designed for only 42 people. At the time of the storming, only seven were held there: four for forging bank bills, one for immoral behavior, and two more mentally ill people accused of attempted murder. None of them were “freedom fighters”.
In fact, the event itself, which became a symbol of the French Revolution, had much more pragmatic reasons. The day before, the insurgent Parisians seized the House of the Invalids, where the arsenals were stored, and obtained weapons. But gunpowder was not found there. His vault was in the Bastille. This became the real reason for her assault.
In the meantime, rumors were spreading in the city that German and Swiss regiments were heading to Paris to disperse the protests. This only added fuel to the fire. Thousands of people marched to the Bastille. The settlers themselves were relatively few – about 800-900 people. But the streets around the fortification were filled with a crowd: men, women with children, spectators who perceived everything as a spectacular event.
There were 120 defenders of the fortress. They saw from the height of the walls how, it seemed, the entire capital was coming towards them. They lacked the determination to open fire on the crowd, and their forces were unequal. In the end, they lowered the drawbridges themselves and surrendered the fortress, receiving a promise that nothing would happen to them.
But the crowd did not forgive. The commandant of the Bastille, de Launay, was beheaded, put on a pike and carried around Paris. It became a symbol not of victory over the monarchy, but of the bloody awakening of the people who had tasted power. The fall of the Bastille went down in history not as a military success, but as a moment of psychological breakdown that marked the beginning of a large-scale revolution and a new era in the history of France.
The first documented football match
On July 14, 1894, the first documented football match took place. Four modern states — Ukraine, Poland, Austria, and Hungary — can claim to be mentioned in history. At the time of the event, Lviv was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – that is how it happened historically. However, the very fact of the game, its participants and venue belong to the rich heritage of Lviv and Ukrainian football.
The match took place in Lviv as part of the program of a large exhibition of achievements of the national economy. Two teams with the same name entered the field – “Sokil”, one from Krakow, the other from Lviv. People from Lviv played in white t-shirts and gray gymnastics clothes, people from Krakow – in white t-shirts and blue pants. The gate did not consist of a frame, but of two flags embedded in the ground. The match lasted only 7 minutes – until the first goal was scored. It happened in the 6th minute, when Vlodzimez Khomytskyi, a second-year student of the teacher’s gymnasium, the youngest player of the Lviv team, scored the only goal of the game.
The subsequent fate of Khomytskyi was not easy. He was a native of Lviv, but during the forced deportation of the Polish population from the territory of the USSR in 1945-1946, he moved to Poland – to the small town of Khotsyanov in the so-called “returned territories”. He died there at the age of 75 on July 12, 1953.
The Football Federation of Ukraine officially recognized this match, which took place on July 14, 1894 in Lviv, as the first documented football match in the history of Ukrainian football.
However, the history of Ukrainian football began even earlier — in 1878, in Odessa. It was there that English sailors founded the football “Odesa British Athletic Club” (OBAC). Until 1899, his team consisted exclusively of Englishmen. The first local players were Piotrovsky and Kryzhanovsky, the latter later founded Sporting Club. Serhiy Utochkin, one of the first aviators in the country, also spoke for OBAK. It was in Odesa that the first real football field on the territory of modern Ukraine was built.
