February 18 is the 49th day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. There are 316 days left until the end of the year. In the 20th and 21st centuries, this day corresponds to February 5 of the Julian calendar.

What a holiday on February 18 / , Viktor Kovalchuk

On this day, the world celebrates the Feast of All the Frivolous, Pluto Day, World Information Management Day.

In the USA – Drinking Wine Day, In-flight Milking a Cow Day, Thumbs Up Day, Battery Day, Flounder Stuffed with Crab Day, in Gambia Independence Day, in Turkmenistan – Diplomatic Day, in Nepal – Democracy Day, in In Sierra Leone – Day of the Armed Forces, in Japan – Day of Island Languages, in Switzerland – Bern Carnival.

Commemorative dates of February 18, anniversaries and events

In 1895, an exhibition and sale of Paul Gauguin’s paintings failed miserably in Paris. The story is as follows: the Frenchman Paul Gauguin lived most of his life in poverty, depression and illness. His works were often not in demand, the artist led a poor existence, broke up with his family, and wandered. For several years he lived in Brittany, Panama and the island of Martinique, in 1888 he worked with Van Gogh in Arles. The rejection of his modern society awakened Gauguin’s interest in the traditional way of life. And in 1891, an exhibition of Gauguin’s paintings was organized in Paris, and with the money from the sold paintings, he went to Oceania, to the island of Tahiti. Gauguin spent his time there very productively, painting 47 paintings.

The new collection was put up for auction at the Paris house of Drouot. It was opened on February 18, 1895. Despite the expectation, only nine paintings were sold, and for a small amount. All the money received at the auction went to pay the auctioneers. Thanks to the funds collected by friends, he was able to return to Polynesia after the failure. He was threatened with a fine of 1,000 francs and imprisonment for debt, which he avoided by dying of a heart attack. After Gauguin’s death, the cycle of works created by the artist in Tahiti was recognized as a masterpiece.

His canvases were unique in terms of decorative color, flatness and monumentality of the composition, generalization of the stylized drawing and influenced the creative pursuits of many artists of the beginning of the 20th century. In 2015, Gauguin’s painting “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” (“When You Get Married”), created in 1892 and in the collection of Swiss art collector Rudolf Stechelin from Basel, was sold for a record 300 million dollars. This is the highest amount ever paid for a work of art.

In 1978, the first triathlon competitions were held / photo REUTERS

In 1911, the first ever mail flight took place in India. Pilot Henri Piquet delivered 6.5 thousand letters and 250 postcards from Allahabad to Nein, a distance of 13 km. The letters were canceled with a special stamp with the inscription: “First aerial post. UP Exhibition. Allahabad. 1911” (“First aerial post. United National Exhibition. Allahabad. 1911”). The special stamp of the Allahabad airmail was put in red paint, a small part of official correspondence acquired black impressions.

The stamp was commissioned by the Government of India by the Post Office in the city of Aligarh and is unique in that the cliché was destroyed immediately after the flight ended. The stamp shows the silhouette of a biplane flying over the mountains of Asia. The design of the stamp was drawn by the initiator of flight, Walter Windham, the owner of an automobile company, who in 1908 founded the aviation club. The amount earned from airmail transportation was donated to the Oxford and Cambridge Hotel for the maintenance of students.

In 1913, Frederick Soddy introduced the term “isotope”. Soddy is an English radiochemist, member of the Royal Society of London, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In 1930, the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the ninth planet of the Solar System – Pluto at the Lowell Observatory. The right to name the new celestial body belonged to the Lovell Observatory. But the name options started coming from all over the world. The name “Pluto” was first proposed by Venetsia Burney, an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Oxford. She was interested not only in astronomy, but also in classical mythology, and decided that this name – an ancient Roman version of the name of the Greek god of the underworld – was suitable for such a likely dark and cold world. The object was officially named on March 24, 1930. And 76 years later, in August 2006, at the Assembly of the International Astronomical Union held in Prague, Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet of the Solar System.

It is now only a “dwarf planet”. After a week of discussions, 2.5 thousand astronomers representing 75 countries of the world approved by voting the criteria that a celestial body must meet in order to acquire the status of a planet. According to the new definition, the status of a planet is assigned to “a celestial body that moves in an orbit around the Sun, belongs exclusively to this celestial body, has sufficient mass to form a gravitational field, as a result of which this celestial body acquires a spherical shape.” After excluding Pluto from among the planets, this name is attached to only 8 heavenly bodies: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. According to the new classification, Pluto belongs to the category of small planets, or planetoids.

In 1978, the first triathlon competitions – Ironman – were held.

In 1979, for the first time during observations, snow fell in the Sahara desert.

In 2004, there was an explosion of a railway warehouse with dangerous goods near Nishapur (Iran). About 300 people died, about five hundred were injured.

What a church holiday today

On February 18, the church commemorates the martyr Agafia Panormska / photo ua.depositphotos.com

On February 18, the Orthodox Church honors the memory of martyr Agafia Panormska. This day was considered a memorial day. He was still popularly called Agafia Skotnitsy. Agafia is the patroness of livestock and a protector from fire.

What can’t be done today

You can’t quarrel, especially conflicts in the family. It is also impossible for the house to be messy. It is necessary to get up the day before.

Signs for February 18

Folk signs today / photo

• frost hit – spring will be early and warm, but summer – dry;
• it has not snowed – there will be no precipitation in the summer;
• The day is warm – spring will come soon.

February 18, the name day

Name days of Agafia, Anton, Feodosia, Vasylina, Mykhailo and Oleksandra.