July 18 is World Listening Day, Ideal Family Day and
“Tetris” birthday. On this day, for centuries, events took place that changed entire countries, opened new worlds, expanded scientific knowledge, broke geopolitical alliances, and marked the end of colonial eras.
World Listening Day
This day draws attention to a person’s ability to hear the world around him – without the intervention of words, noise, explanations and filters. The center is not hearing loss or music, it is about focused listening to the sounds of the environment: the wind, the rustle of grass, the crunch of soles, the hum of electric lines, the cry of a bird or the echo in the subway. This is a day not for speech, but for silence, in which a person listens to space.
Sound in this context is a research tool, because through it you can understand how ecology, architecture, everyday life, the rhythm of a city or a forest are organized. Everything that sounds is already a source of knowledge. For example, background noise can signal a decrease in biodiversity, technical overload, overpopulation, mental fatigue. Some soundscapes are disappearing forever—like the tinkling of ice on rivers that have dried up, or the chirping of birds whose populations have died out.
Interesting facts
The longest recording of an unchanging soundscape has been conducted since 1993 in Olympic National Park in the USA. This is one of the few areas without any man-made noise, where only natural sounds can be heard: rain, frogs, wind.
The sound environment of cities is measured by the term “sound architecture”. It is used for planning parks, subways, railway stations and even hospitals, where it is important to avoid acoustic stress.
In Japan, there are “sound paths” – routes through urban or natural locations, which are laid out so that the visitor hears a sequence of sounds: a stream of water, the sound of maple trees, the singing of cicadas. They are not marked on the maps – they only indicate that it is necessary to listen here.
The French government finances the audio archiving of the traditional sound environment of villages, where local dialects, chants, and craft workshops sound. It is considered to be a heritage equivalent to linguistic or architectural.
Perfect family day
This holiday has no official status and is not international. Its popularity has increased thanks to social networks and the commercialization of the theme of family values. In the center of this day is not the legal form of the couple, not the number of children and not conforming to external models. It is about the idealization of harmonious relationships, where people in the family feel protected, heard, accepted.
This day is often accompanied by posts on social networks with hashtags, romanticized pictures, unified smiles, where reality is replaced by expectations. However, what is an “ideal” family is not defined. It can be a couple without children, a mother and daughter, a grandmother and grandchildren, a person and a pet – depending on who and what gives the feeling of home.
Interesting facts
In Ukraine, more than 30% of children do not live with their biological father — some of them are raised in foster or single-parent families and have better emotional stability than in full-parent families with conflicts.
In men who actively care for babies, the structure of the brain changes — the amount of gray matter in the areas of empathy increases. The Moso tribes in China have no institution of paternity at all — children are raised by maternal uncles, not biological parents.
Children’s brains under the age of 7 react more to the tone of the voice than to the content of the words — gentle words with tension in the voice are perceived as a threat.
A Norwegian study showed that in families where there are frequent jokes, the risk of heart attack and stroke is 35% lower.
The main reason for divorce is not betrayal, but emotional distancing: people do not fight, but stop talking to each other.
In the Scandinavian countries, more than 60% of children are born to couples who are not married – the state does not differentiate between married and informal families.
In France, part of the pensioners live in “collective families”: several elderly people unite in a household community, manage a joint budget and take care of each other without family ties.
In South Korea, the service of renting a “family for a day” is actively developing – single people order an actor to play the role of a mother, father or child in order to experience the feeling of closeness that is missing.
Tetris Birthday
This day is considered the birthday of “Tetris” because on July 18, 1985, its first official version was released for IBM computers, an event that marked the beginning of its international distribution. The game itself was created by Oleksiy Pazhitnov on June 6, 1984 on the Elektronika-60 computer in the computing center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. It was written in Pascal as a fun performance test.
Despite the Soviet authorship, Pazhitnov did not receive a penny from the game for a long time. All rights belonged to the state, and later to foreign companies that bought licenses bypassing the author. It wasn’t until 10 years after creating the game that Pazhitnov started making a profit when he moved to the US and founded The Tetris Company.
“Tetris” had no sound, color, special effects – only the falling of pieces and the clearing of lines. But it was this simplicity and the “just learn to see patterns” formula that made the game universal. It was one of the first Soviet developments to break through the Iron Curtain and the first computer game to hit the Game Boy.
Interesting facts
In the brain of a person who often plays “Tetris”, the activity of the area of spatial imagination changes noticeably: this was used in experiments on the rehabilitation of memory after injuries.
After playing Tetris for a long time, many players experience the “Tetris effect”: they begin to see shapes made of blocks in everyday objects – boxes, windows, clouds.
They tried to ban the game in the GDR, because it was “too exciting”. In schools, it was classified as unwanted programs that reduce student productivity.
In 1993, there was a version of “Tetris” in Japan that measured the heart rate of the player – it changed the speed of the game depending on the physiological state.
“Tetris” was the first software product from the USSR that was officially purchased by an American company – it became a precedent for IT contacts between countries during the “Cold War”.
NASA used a game in simulators to test the attention span of astronauts.
In 2023, a feature film was made about the creation of the game with Taron Edgerton, which showed how much politics, espionage and trade there was around this, at first glance, simple game.
Historical events on this day
64 — A great fire broke out in Rome, which lasted a week and destroyed ten of the fourteen city blocks. The fire even reached the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill. There are versions that Nero himself was involved in this, although historians do not have definitive proof. This tragedy changed the urban planning of the capital of the empire: new fire regulations were introduced and wider streets were built.
1672 — Near Chetvertynivka, on Podilla, the troops of Hetman Petro Doroshenko defeated the forces of Mykhailo Khanenko, one of the contenders for the mace during the days of Ruina. This battle consolidated Doroshenko’s power in the region and confirmed his orientation towards an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, which further caused even greater political destabilization in Ukrainian lands.
1870 — The First Vatican Council approved the dogmatic constitution “Pastor Aeternus”, which established the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith and morals. This ultimately strengthened the centralization of the Catholic Church and caused a long debate among theologians, especially in the context of Protestant and Eastern churches.
1878 — The Swede Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld became the first person to complete the Northeast Sea Route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. His expedition proved the practical possibility of an Arctic sea route along the coast of Siberia, which later played an important role in the transport system of the Russian Empire and the USSR.
1898 — The Curie couple officially presented the results of research at the Paris Academy of Sciences, which confirmed the presence of radioactive elements other than uranium. It was a breakthrough in science: their work led to the discovery of polonium and radium, which later changed both physics and medicine.
1936 — In the USSR, the first draw of the USSR Cup in football started – it was the beginning of the Soviet football tradition at the state level. The tournament immediately gained popularity and became the main national football event until the collapse of the Union.
1946 — In emigration, the activity of the Union of Ukrainian Youth was resumed — an organization that became a center for preserving Ukrainian identity among the diaspora in Europe, Canada, the USA, and Australia. She worked with young people, organized camps, literary circles and religious education, supporting national memory in conditions far from the Motherland.
1947 — British King George VI signed the law that legally established India’s future independence. Thus ended more than a century and a half of British colonial rule. The law paved the way for the formation of two states — India and Pakistan, which became one of the most painful processes in the 20th century: the partition was accompanied by bloody clashes, the flight of millions and mass tragedies.
1968 — The Intel company was founded, which would later become a pioneer in the field of microprocessors. The creation of the company was a decisive step in the formation of the modern computer industry. Intel didn’t just make chips—it created the standard around which the entire personal computer industry was built.
1972 — Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided to withdraw 20,000 Soviet “advisors” from the country, accusing Moscow of failing to fulfill its obligations regarding the supply of weapons. This marked a turning point in Egypt’s foreign policy, which soon began to draw closer to the West, especially the United States.
1995 — In Kyiv, near the walls of St. Sophia Cathedral, Patriarch Volodymyr (Romanyuk) was buried, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. His burial became an act of symbolic resistance – it was then that the police and pro-Russian priests tried to prevent the burial on the territory of Sophia of Kyiv, which caused a conflict and mobilization of the public.
2023 Voyager 2, launched in 1977, overtook Pioneer 10 to become the second most distant man-made object after Voyager 1. This testified to the unique reliability of the device, which after almost 50 years in space continues to transmit signals from beyond the heliosphere.
Geese saved Rome
July 18, 387 BC is the day that was included in the first of the written events of Roman history, which were later described by Hellenic chroniclers: it was then, according to legend, that the sacred geese saved the Capitol – and indeed Rome itself – from the final destruction by the Gauls.
This happened after the defeat of the Roman army in a battle against the Gauls not far from the city, 11 miles away. The battle was chaotic and humiliating: the troops retreated and hid on Capitol Hill. Rome itself was defenseless – the city was occupied by invaders, and all the inhabitants who did not flee died. Old senators and priests, not wanting to leave the city, put on ceremonial clothes, sat down in ivory chairs in the forums and waited for death. The barbarians did not spare them – neither the sanctity of the age nor the dignity of the gesture stopped the sword.
One night a detachment of Gauls discovered a secret path that led straight to the Capitol. The watchman fell asleep, the dogs did not make a sound. But in the temple of Juno, the patron goddess, the sacred geese remained. Their loud howling woke up the Roman soldiers, who managed to repulse the attack. Ironically, it was the geese, not the army, that proved to be the last line of defense.
Juno had another aspect in this story: her temple stood on the spot where the first Roman mint later appeared. Because of this, they began to call her Juno Moneta, and the word currency later gave the name to money in many languages of the world.
After the attack, the parties agreed on a ransom: the Romans were to pay the Gauls a thousand pounds of gold. But, according to legend, when weighing gold, the Romans noticed that the scales were unfair – the Gauls replaced the weights. When they began to object, Brenn, the leader of the Gauls, took off his sword, threw it together with his belt on the scales and shouted: “Woe to the defeated!” — “Woe to the vanquished!”. These words became popular for millennia to come as a reminder that no one is going to be fair to the vanquished.
Proclamation of the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope
On July 18, 1870, the First Vatican Council, presided over by Pope Pius IX, proclaimed one of the most controversial dogmas in the entire history of the Catholic Church — the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. He states: When the Pope acts as supreme shepherd and teacher of all Christians and pronounces doctrine on matters of faith or morals, his utterance is infallible. This infallibility, according to Catholic teaching, is given to him by the Holy Spirit and does not depend on the approval of a church council or other body.
At the same time, this does not mean that every word of the Pope is the ultimate truth. The dogma works only in the conditions of a formal, solemn proclamation of the truth ex cathedra — that is, “from the pulpit” as the official position of the Church. Despite the loudness of the dogma itself, its practical application was extremely limited: only once – in 1950, when Pius XII solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven.
This dogma, along with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (1854) and the formula “filioque” (“and from the Son”) in the Creed, became one of the main obstacles in the dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Orthodoxy sees in the idea of papal infallibility a denial of the Church’s collegiality — that is, the principle according to which the truth is produced by common discernment, and not proclaimed individually. The historical roots of the conflict go deeper, but it was the dogma of 1870 that brought these contradictions to the level of an official break in theological positions.
The very idea of infallibility causes discontent not only in religious circles. Quite often, it “relocates” to the political, media, and ideological space, where everyone who has a podium automatically gives himself the right to the absolute. And this self-confidence, supported by partial truth and selective morality, takes on the appearance of a new type of “infallibility” – without any participation of the Holy Spirit, but with media support and algorithms. In such an atmosphere, the words of Bertrand Russell sound especially accurate: “The problem with this world is that the stupid are overconfident and the smart are full of doubts”.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s birthday
Yevhen Oleksandrovich Yevtushenko was born on July 18, 1932 – poet, novelist, screenwriter, director, actor, reader, publicist. He was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was one of the most famous representatives of the so-called “poetry of the tribune” — a generation of poets who took poetry beyond the pages of books and read poems in front of thousands of halls, often appealing to moral responsibility, civic conscience, and inner freedom.
The poet was born in the Irkutsk region, but had German roots: his real surname is Gangnus. His grandfather – Rudolph Gangnus – was an outstanding mathematics teacher, his father – an amateur poet and hydrogeologist, and his mother – an actress. It was she who made the decision to change her son’s surname to her maiden name – Yevtushenko, in order to hide his German origin, which during the war could cause suspicion or even persecution.
Yevtushenko had a close connection with Kharkiv. It was here, when he was still young, that he performed on Poetry Square, read his poems in front of a large audience, participated in the cultural life of the city, supported local artists and helped people in difficult life situations. His presence was not episodic – he actively interacted with the local community and associated himself with the Kharkiv Region, which he called his second Motherland.
On May 14, 1989, Yevhen Yevtushenko was elected People’s Deputy of the USSR from the Dzerzhinsky and Kyiv constituencies of Kharkiv. His victory was undisputed – he received 19 times more votes than his nearest opponent. This happened at a time when the concepts of political marketing, voter influence technologies, or “buckwheat” were not yet widespread. Yevtushenko was not elected because of an advertising campaign, but for his talent, sincerity, reputation and trust. He remained a deputy until the collapse of the USSR.
The poet did not hide his love for Ukraine and Kharkiv. He openly wore an embroidered shirt, spoke in Ukrainian, spoke about his attachment to Kharkiv region not as a political symbol, but as a place that sincerely accepted and inspired him.
“Bloody Tuesday” or “The Second Sofia Massacre”
On July 18, 1995, the funeral of the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Russia-Ukraine of the UOC KP Volodymyr (Vasyl Romaniuk, in peace) took place in Kyiv. These funerals went down in history as “Bloody Tuesday” or “The Second Sophia Massacre”. The events near St. Sophia’s Cathedral turned into an open street confrontation between the supporters of the independent Ukrainian church and the power structures of the state.
Patriarch Volodymyr was a famous Ukrainian religious figure and dissident. In 1944, he was convicted for participating in the OUN, and later for anti-Soviet agitation. He served his sentence, survived emigration, and later returned to Ukraine. In the 1990s, he actively advocated the creation of an independent local church with its center in Kyiv. He was supported by nationalist forces, in particular UNA-UNSO. The patriarch died on July 14, 1995 under unknown circumstances.
Politicians, religious figures, and activists gathered for the funeral. Among them are Levko Lukyanenko, Vyacheslav Chornovil, Leonid Kravchuk. It was decided to bury the patriarch in a place of honor – on the territory of St. Sophia Cathedral. But on the day of the funeral, everything went completely differently.
Later, Prime Minister Yevgeny Marchuk explained: President Leonid Kuchma’s team gave instructions not to allow a burial on the territory of the “Sofia Kyivska” reserve, because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate was then “out of favor” with the presidential administration.
UNA-UNSO activists came to the cathedral in an organized column, in camouflage, with red and black crosses. The convoy was led by Oleksandr Muzychko and Ihor Mosiychuk. They were opposed by militia units with rubber batons and tear gas. A violent clash began. Stones, shovels, metal objects and even household items were thrown. The confrontation lasted until late evening. Around 22:00, the police were called. According to official data, several dozen people were injured, but no serious injuries were recorded. All detainees were quickly released.
Neither the security forces nor the protesters suffered any punishment. Leonid Kravchuk publicly called the events “a gift for the anniversary of Kuchma’s inauguration.” Kuchma himself denied his involvement and stated that he did not know about the beating of people, placing the responsibility on Prime Minister Marchuk. He, in turn, said that the president is responsible.
The grave of Patriarch Volodymyr is still located near the Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
