July 18 is celebrated as the Day of the Ideal Family, the World Listening Day, the birthday of the game “Tetris”, and the International Day of Nelson Mandela.
World Listening Day is an annual international event held on July 18. It is dedicated to a deeper understanding of the world, environment, societies and cultures through the practice of close listening and field notes. This day invites us to slow down, open our ears and explore soundscapes.
Perfect family day is dedicated to recognizing the importance of strong family bonds and celebrating all the wonderful aspects that make us family.
International Nelson Mandela Day – defender of rights and freedoms, political prisoner, peacemaker, the first democratically elected president of South Africa, who overcame apartheid. In honor of his contribution to the struggle for peace and universal human values, the United Nations established Nelson Mandela International Day, which is celebrated annually on July 18.
Tetris Birthday — on this day in 1985, an electronic version of the popular computer game “Tetris” was released. Its inventor is the scientist Oleksiy Pazhitnov. The world first saw the game on June 6, 1984.
Other events on this day:
- 64 year – the “Great Fire” began in Rome, which lasted a week and destroyed 10 of the 14 districts of the city.
- 1878 year – the Swedish polar explorer Adolf Nordenskjöld was the first to pass the northern route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
- 1898 year – Pierre and Marie Curie presented a report at the Paris Academy on the discovery of a new chemical element — polonium — the second radioactive after uranium.
- 1915 year – in the Adriatic Sea, an Austro-Hungarian submarine sank the Italian cruiser “Giuseppe Garibaldi”.
- 1946 year – the Union of Ukrainian Youth was restored in exile.
- 1947 year – King George VI of Great Britain signed the law on the independence of British India.
- 1994 year – a suicide bomber of the Hezbollah movement blew up the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires (Argentina), resulting in the death of 85 people.
- 2013 year – the authorities of the American Detroit filed an application to declare the city bankrupt.
- 2019 year – 36 people died as a result of an arson attack at the Kyoto Animation studio in Japan.
- 2023 year – the Voyager 2 spacecraft overtook Pioneer 10 in terms of distance from the Sun, becoming second after Voyager 1.
July 18, 387 BC geese saved Rome. This was the first event in Roman history that was described in the annals of educated Hellenes. This story took place in those distant times, when the ancient Romans were fighting the wild Gauls. The first “disorganized and therefore shameful battle” the Roman army conducted 11 miles from Rome, but was defeated and hid in the Capitol. All captured inhabitants of the city, including women and children, died from the swords of the Gauls, including elderly senators and priests who decided not to leave their native city. The noble elders put on rich festive clothes and began to await their fate in the Roman forum, sitting in ivory chairs. All of them were killed by the barbarians who entered the city.
At night, the soldiers of the Gauls discovered a secret path leading to the Capitol. Everything would have succeeded (even the dogs did not hear) if it were not for the sacred geese from the temple of Juno Radnytsia. With a loud cackle, the geese rushed at the uninvited guests, and the Roman soldiers who were able to repulse the attack of the enemies rose up behind them.
Later, of course, there were negotiations. The opponents agreed that the Romans would pay the Gauls a thousand pounds of gold, and they would immediately leave the city and Roman possessions. There is a legend associated with the emergence of the winged expression – while weighing gold, the Romans discovered that the Gauls were using false weights. Naturally, they were indignant. In response to their complaints, Brann unbuckled his sword and belt and threw them onto the scales, shouting: “Vae victis” (“Woe to the vanquished!”). You can, of course, remember the wise Jewish saying with humor: “Lord, thank you for taking money…”, but the Romans are not Jews – from that time, July 18 was considered unlucky among the Romans.
However, there is also a holiday in honor of the amazing birds that saved the city. On this day, a goose is respectfully carried through the streets of the city, and people bow to it with gratitude, and a dog is dragged behind it on a rope. At first, the holiday was quite cruel – the dog was crucified, and the goose was on pillows, this was watched as a warning to all representatives of the canine family, so that they do not fall asleep on duty. With the spread of Christianity, dogs began to be led on a rope… The essence of the holiday is to never underestimate your enemy and always be grateful for a good deed. By the way, after these events, Rome became the strongest state in Europe – for several centuries, no one threatened the inhabitants of Rome enough to hide in the Capitol or think about moving the capital to a new place.
On July 18, 1870, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope was adopted. Blessed Pius IX accepted it. The dogma asserted that when the pope defines the teachings of the Church concerning faith or morals, he possesses infallibility (infallibility) and is protected from the very possibility of error. By the way, together with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and filioque (an addition made by the Western (Roman) Church to the Nicene-Constantinople Creed of the IV century in the dogma of the Trinity: about the descent of the Holy Spirit not only from God the Father, but “also from the Son “), this dogma has become one of the main stumbling blocks in the inter-confessional dialogue between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which sees in it a violation of the dogma of church collegiality.
In honor of the Roman popes, the dogma of infallibility was used only once – in 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One often gets the impression that this dogma is still valid for almost all politicians and activists of all stripes and colors – all of them, telling us only a fraction of the truth, assure us of their infallibility and correctness and at the same time pass judgment, forgetting the interesting point expressed by Bertrand Russell – “The problem with this world is that fools are overconfident and smart people are full of doubts.”
On July 18, 1995, the funeral of Patriarch of Kyiv and All Russia-Ukraine UOC KP Volodymyr took place. They went down in history as “Bloody or Black Tuesday”, “Second Sofia Massacre”. Volodymyr (Vasyl) Romaniuk is a Ukrainian dissident and religious figure who died on July 14, 1995 under rather strange circumstances. During his lifetime, he was “incarcerated” for participating in the OUN in 1944, and later for anti-Soviet propaganda. Then there was emigration and return to the Motherland. He actively advocated the creation of an independent local Ukrainian church with its center in Kyiv. Of course, UNA-UNSO was actively supported.
Politicians Levko Lukyanenko, Vyacheslav Chornovil, and Leonid Kravchuk attended Volodymyr’s funeral. They decided to bury him in a place of honor in St. Sophia Cathedral, but something went wrong – Yevhen Marchuk would later explain this by the command of President Kuchma, who gave the order to prevent the burial of the Patriarch on the territory of St. Sophia Cathedral, because the UOC KP “was out of favor in the Presidential Administration.” After that, terrible consequences followed.
On the one hand, the activists of “UNA-UNSO” – in uniform and in camouflage uniforms with the red and black crosses of their organization, led by Oleksandr Muzychk and Igor Mosiychuk, on the other – militia units with gas and rubber batons. They fought fiercely – with stones, shovels and crowbars, even… a coffin. The confrontation lasted until the evening. At 10 p.m., the police were taken away. To this day, no one can answer why there was this fight… There were about thirty victims, but no serious injuries or maimed people were spared. The detainees were immediately released. Neither the protesters nor the police were punished for exceeding their powers. Kravchuk said that “this was a gift for the anniversary of Kuchma’s inauguration.” Kuchma – that he did not know about the beating of people and shifted all responsibility to Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk, but he knows the truth about what happened and will tell about it later, but did not tell… Marchuk, in turn, put the responsibility on of the president… The grave of Patriarch Volodymyr is located near Sofia even now.
