World Book Day

On this day, 23th April, all our book collectors celebrate World Book Day.

This yearly event on April 23 was organized in 1995 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote reading, publishing and copyrights. The history of this day is very interesting: the date is anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the death of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla, the birth of Maurice Druon, Vladimir Nabokov and other world famous writers and scholars. Although 23 April is often stated as the anniversary of the deaths of both William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, but this is not strictly correct. Cervantes died on 23 April according the Gregorian calendar; however, at this time England still used the Julian calendar. Whilst Shakespeare died on 23 April by the Julian calendar in use in his own country at the time, actually he died ten days after Cervantes, because of the discrepancy between the two date systems. This correspondence of the two dates was a fortunate coincidence for UNESCO.

Posted by serge, 23 April 2009. Post has 0 comments.
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