June 25 is celebrated in Ukraine as Customs Officer’s Day, in the world – International Sailor’s Day, World Beatles Day and World Vitiligo Day. In the history of mankind, this day left many significant events — from geographical disasters and scientific discoveries to political decisions, cultural breakthroughs and social shifts.
Day of the customs officer of Ukraine
This professional holiday of customs service employees is established at the state level to honor the importance of the customs system and the role of specialists who ensure the economic security of the state, regulate foreign trade flows and control the crossing of goods through the customs border. On this day, official congratulations are given, awards are given, and thematic events are held in the structure of the State Customs Service and other state bodies, but the main emphasis is the public recognition of the role of the customs officer as a guarantor of the legal circulation of goods and part of the national security system.
This date is associated with the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Customs Affairs in Ukraine” on June 25, 1991, which established the modern Ukrainian customs system as an independent institution separated from the Soviet structure. It was this act that started the formation of its own customs policy, personnel composition, regulatory framework and professional ethics of the Ukrainian customs officer.
Interesting facts
The first official customs officer of independent Ukraine is Mykola Kalensky, who headed the newly created customs administration in 1991 after it was separated from the union apparatus.
In the mid-1990s, Ukrainian customs officials served more than 70 customs offices and posts located not only on the border, but also inside the country — at that time, customs control was applied even at railway stations within the borders of the regions.
Before the introduction of electronic declaration, Ukrainian customs officials annually manually checked up to 10 million paper documents accompanying cargo.
Historically, the first customs territory on the territory of modern Ukraine was the customs office in Lviv, created back in the 14th century during the time of the Russian Kingdom. Customs tax was then collected from goods passing through the so-called “gates”.
In the 1880s, the famous Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko repeatedly wrote essays about abuses on the Austrian-Russian border – customs at that time were part of the geopolitical game between empires, and customs officials played the role of an instrument of political control.
International Day of the Seafarer
This professional holiday was launched in 2010 after the adoption of Resolution No. 19 at the Diplomatic Review Conference of the Convention on the Training and Certification of Seafarers (STCW) in Manila. It was initiated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized UN agency responsible for maritime safety, protection of the marine environment and international maritime law.
The main purpose of this day is to recognize the contribution of seafarers to global trade, transport and the stability of the world economy. More than 90% of all cargo traffic in the world is carried out by sea, and this is supported by the work of more than 1.8 million seafarers in all climates, including in risk areas, including piracy areas, military conflicts and epidemics.
The International Day of the Seafarer is a day of global appeal to governments, companies and society with the demand to respect the rights of seafarers: the right to rest, communication, timely change of crews, decent working conditions.
Interesting facts
In 2020, more than 400,000 seafarers around the world were forced to stay on board for more than 11 months due to the pandemic. Some crews lived on ships for up to 17 months without permission to board. The UN officially recognized the situation as a humanitarian crisis.
Ukrainian sailors are among the five most in-demand in the world. By 2022, about 75,000 Ukrainians will be working as part of international crews every year, and almost half of them will be senior officers. Some foreign companies refused the fleet if they could not hire Ukrainian mechanics.
In 2017, pirates seized a tanker with a crew of 18 Ukrainians off the coast of Nigeria. After lengthy negotiations, they were released, but according to unofficial data, the owner company paid a ransom of more than a million dollars, which has not been officially confirmed by any party.
In 2021, a crew with Ukrainian sailors independently moored a ship in the Indian port of Mumbai – all shore personnel disappeared due to an outbreak of the Delta strain, and not a single docker went to work. Maneuvers were performed manually at night, without communication with the shore.
In the world’s navies, about 20 percent of ships have crews that are not citizens of the country under whose flag they fly. This creates legal conflicts, because in the event of accidents or crimes, there is no clear responsibility and often no possibility to bring charges.
In 2022, Ukrainian sailors who were on flights faced discrimination during crew changes. Some ports refused to accept Ukrainian citizens, fearing political risks. The IMO issued a separate statement calling for no restrictions on seafarers based on nationality.
Seafarers are the only profession that has a separate Seafarers’ Labor Convention (MLC) recognized by most countries in the world. The document provides special conditions for life, rest, protection of rights, nutrition, access to medical care, which are not enjoyed by any other category of workers.
More than 90 percent of global freight traffic is carried by sea, but less than 1 percent of passengers know the names of their crews. Most sailors remain completely anonymous to the millions of people to whom they deliver clothes, electronics, food or fuel.
World Beatles Day
This is an unofficial but globally known holiday dedicated to the work of The Beatles. This date was not chosen by chance: it was on June 25, 1967 that The Beatles performed live on the satellite TV bridge “Our World” with the song All You Need Is Love – for the first time in history, the music was performed live in front of an audience of more than 400 million viewers in 26 countries at the same time. That is why June 25 is considered a symbolic culmination of their philosophy of peace, unity and freedom.
The initiator of establishing Global Beatles Day was the American activist Faith Cohen, who in 2009 proposed this day as a “worldwide thanks to the band for their influence on humanity.” The holiday has no commercial character and is not tied to any official calendar, but has gained recognition among fans, musicians and cultural organizations in dozens of countries. On this day, thematic concerts, flash mobs, album rebroadcasts, temporary exhibitions are opened and discussions are organized, but the main idea is not nostalgia, but the actualization of their humanistic messages in the modern world.
Interesting facts
On June 25, 1967, The Beatles’ “Our World” telecast was not only the first global music broadcast, but also featured Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull and Keith Richards on backing vocals. It was a spontaneous gesture of solidarity, not advertised in the program.
In the 1970s, Guinea had a government decree banning the broadcasting of The Beatles songs because of their “bourgeois influence”. Despite this, radio presenters put their compositions under other names, calling them “British folk songs”.
The Ukrainian translation of the song Yesterday was officially performed on stage for the first time in 1986 – before that, the band’s entire work was actually banned in the USSR. Some enthusiasts made self-published records from “pseudo-plastics” – flexible records cut from X-ray films.
In 2001, a musician from Bangladesh approached the World Wildlife Fund to name a newly discovered fish in the Indian Ocean after George Harrison. His argument was that Harrison organized the first charity concert for this country.
In 2020, NASA used the song Across the Universe during the telecast of the SpaceX Crew Dragon launch, a symbolic reference to the exploration of the limits of the human imagination that The Beatles brought to pop culture.
John Lennon seriously considered moving to Kyiv in 1979. This was told by the Soviet translator Viktor Perelman, with whom Lennon corresponded in the context of the exchange of creative ideas. This story is not documented, but was actively discussed in dissident circles in the 1980s.
The Beatles never officially featured women, but their recordings regularly featured female voices, including parts of Yellow Submarine and the background effects of Sgt. Pepper’s. These were the voices of the McCartney sisters and assistants from the Abbey Road studio, who were not mentioned on the covers.
World Vitiligo Day
This day has been celebrated since 2011 in honor of the death of Michael Jackson, who suffered from vitiligo. Today is designed to draw attention to an autoimmune skin disease that causes loss of pigmentation in certain areas of the body. His story has become a symbol not only of the fight against the disease, but also of the discrimination, misunderstanding and speculation that still haunt people with similar diagnoses.
The international community of patients initiated the creation of this day, and later it was supported by medical institutions, public organizations and dermatological associations. The main goal is not only to inform about the disease itself, but also to fight against prejudice, isolation, and stigmatization of people who have visible manifestations of vitiligo. Although the disease is not contagious and does not affect general health, in many cultures it is perceived as a defect or even a punishment, leading to social exclusion.
During World Vitiligo Day, scientific conferences, flash mobs in support of patients, information campaigns, and sometimes fashion shows with the participation of models with vitiligo are held in various countries. But the main idea of the holiday is the formation of an open and informed society in which differences in appearance are not a reason for stigma.
Interesting facts
Michael Jackson officially confirmed his vitiligo diagnosis in 1993 on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” after years of rumors of “skin bleaching.” His doctor, dermatologist Arnold Klein, publicly stated that the singer used make-up and special products to even out his skin tone when the depigmentation spread to most of his body.
The oldest written description of a disease similar to vitiligo is found in the ancient Indian text “Ayurveda”, dated to the 1st millennium BC. There she was called “shveta kushta” – white leprosy, which caused social rejection.
The prevalence of vitiligo does not depend on race: in all ethnic groups it occurs with the same frequency – approximately 1% of the global population. However, on darker skin, its manifestations are visually brighter, which is why they often become the cause of discrimination.
In some parts of Africa, particularly in Tanzania, people with vitiligo are mistaken for albinos, which exposes them to dangerous prejudice. There are documented cases of attacks on such people due to superstitions about the “magical properties” of their skin.
Model Winnie Garlow, who has a generalized form of vitiligo, has become the first person in the world with this diagnosis to walk the catwalks of major Fashion Weeks and appear in a Victoria’s Secret ad. Her participation in the show became a breaking point in the beauty industry’s ideas about the “acceptability of external differences.”
Vitiligo is often combined with other autoimmune disorders, such as thyroid disease or type 1 diabetes. But with the correct lifestyle correction, most patients lead a full life without any restrictions.
Despite the stereotype, vitiligo is not sexually transmitted, is not related to hygiene and does not pose a threat to others. However, in many Eastern countries, people with vitiligo face rejection from marriage, even if they have a higher education and a stable job.
Modern methods of treating vitiligo are not able to completely stop the disease, but thanks to phototherapy, immunotherapy and new biotechnologies, the first cases of stable repigmentation on 50-80% of the affected skin area were recorded in the 2020s.
Historical events on this day
1503 — one of Christopher Columbus’s ships was wrecked off the coast of Jamaica during his fourth voyage to America. The expedition remained isolated for almost a year, which became a test for sailors and the local population.
1530 — in the presence of Emperor Charles V at the Reichstag in Augsburg, Philip Melanchthon stated the main principles of the Lutheran faith in 28 theses. This was done with the consent of Martin Luther himself, although the documents were ultimately not accepted by the Catholic majority.
1783 — at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in Paris, chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier presented proof that water is a chemical compound of two gases: oxygen and hydrogen. Later, he synthesized water in laboratory conditions, which was a breakthrough in the development of chemistry.
1857 – Charles Baudelaire’s poetry collection “Flowers of Evil” was published. The work became one of the peaks of French literature, but immediately caused the author to be prosecuted for “immorality and contempt for social norms.”
1950 — North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and launched an armed attack on South Korea. This step marked the beginning of the Korean War, which turned into a global confrontation between the blocs of the USSR and the USA.
1975 — the African country of Mozambique gained independence from Portugal after a long anti-colonial uprising and revolutionary events in Portugal itself, which
1991 — two events immediately changed the political map of Europe: Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, which was the beginning of the collapse of the socialist federation and a series of wars in the Balkans.
1991 — in Ukraine, the Law “On Customs Affairs” was adopted, which laid the legal basis for the formation of the national customs as a separate element of economic sovereignty after gaining independence.
1993 — for the first time in the history of Canada, a woman headed the government: Kim Campbell became the prime minister, who held the position for a short time, but left a noticeable mark as a symbol of political shifts in North America.
2009 — the Chinese authorities announced that Google violates the country’s laws, accusing the platform of spreading pornographic content, and temporarily blocked access to it throughout the territory of the PRC.
2009 — Michael Jackson died in the USA at the age of 51. His death caused a global news shock, millions of views and mass commemorations, and later a wave of debate about his health, his diagnosis of vitiligo and his influence on world culture.
The most daring armed action of the beginning of the 20th century
On June 25, 1907, one of the most daring armed actions of the beginning of the 20th century took place in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) — an attack on a treasury carriage during the transportation of funds of the Tiflis branch of the State Bank. The seizure was organized in order to expropriate funds to finance the activities of the Bolshevik Party. The initiator of the operation was the still little-known Joseph Stalin, and the direct leader of the attack was Simon Ter-Petrosyan, better known under the party pseudonym Kamo.
In the Soviet official biographies of Stalin, this episode was passed over in silence, because such activity was expressly prohibited at the 5th Congress of the RSDLP. Formally, the party leadership distanced itself from the practice of “expropriations”, that is, robberies under political cover, but in reality the financial need for such funds often prevailed over ideological restrictions.
As a result of the attack, it was possible to seize the sum of 875 thousand rubles – by the standards of that time, an extremely large amount of money. But most of the bills were of a large denomination – 500 rubles each – and had serial numbers known to the police. An attempt to exchange this money in European banks ended in arrests: as soon as such banknotes appeared in financial circulation, the traces immediately led to the revolutionaries, who were under investigation.
The attack in Tiflis became one of the most striking examples of the use of terror as a tool for financing the party. Although this tactic was later condemned by the majority of the participants of the movement, it was precisely such events that shaped the “field” experience of future leaders, in particular Stalin, whose role in this episode remained in the shadows of official history for a long time.
Invasion of North Korea on the territory of South Korea
On June 25, 1950, at four o’clock in the morning on Sunday, 135 thousand soldiers, 150 T-34 tanks and 172 planes of the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the territory of South Korea, starting the so-called “national liberation war”. This is the official version. Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and leader of the DPRK Kim Il-sung expressed his vision of the events at an extraordinary meeting of the government:
“Li Xing Man’s puppet army invaded the entire 38th parallel line into the northern territory. I appealed to the enemy to stop the invasion, but the enemy is holding territory north of the border and trying to occupy all of North Korea. We are facing a terrible danger. We have to decide whether we will be slaves of imperialist countries or peaceful citizens of an independent state. We must fight against Lee Xing Man’s army. We have to start a revolutionary war against them. Our army must counterattack and win the war.”
In just three days, North Korean troops captured Seoul. American and British troops, acting on the basis of the mandate of the UN Security Council, came to the aid of South Korea. By early October, the North Korean army was pushed back beyond the 38th parallel, and on October 20, the Allies captured Pyongyang. Then China joined the conflict by sending volunteers, and the USSR provided support to its allies with military advisers and aviation. Everything returned to the original positions at the 38th parallel, people continued to die, but the situation remained unchanged.
