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January 20 in History: Here's the National Good Day Day Petition

Burning up the Internet right now is the official proclamation that "Ice Cube's Good Day occurred on January 20th, 1992":http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/1/27/the-internet-has-pinpointed-ice-cube-s-good-day. That's leading many, including myself, to...

Burning up the Internet right now is the official proclamation that Ice Cube’s Good Day occurred on January 20th, 1992. That’s leading many, including myself, to push for January 20 to be a national holiday. Hell, I just whipped up a Change.org petition imploring President Obama to make National Good Day Day real. I mean, it’s Ice Cube! The guy’s a national treasure!

The only barrier to entry is whether or not January 20 is already a holiday. In the United States, it’s not (sort of). January 20 has the curious distinction of being the day that incoming presidents are inaugurated, but I’m not sure that that coincidence precludes the creation of a National Good Day Day. Plus, what president is going to argue that his inauguration isn’t, in fact, a very good day?

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day also occasionally falls on January 20, as it’s set for the third Monday of every January. Once again, I’m not sure that National Good Day Day wouldn’t still apply.

While a bare minimum of research suggests to me that January 20 is possibly available, there’s also the chance that throughout the history of January 20 there occurred an event dramatic enough to warrant a holiday, and who has a pack of advocates just waiting in the wings to make that happen. With this in mind, here’s a brief history of Cube’s Day, via Wikipedia:

1783 – The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence).
1801 – John Marshall is appointed the Chief Justice of the United States.
1885 – L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster.
1887 – The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
1920 – The American Civil Liberties Union is founded.
1929 – In Old Arizona, the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.
1949 – Point Four Program a program for economic aid to poor countries announced by United States President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address for a full term as President.
1954 – The National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
1981 – Twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated, at age 69 the oldest man ever to be inaugurated as U.S. President, Iran releases 52 American hostages.
1986 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.

So, yeah, that’s a pretty long list of notable stuff to have happened on January 20. If you’re one of those smart people who doesn’t trust Wikipedia and you’re hoping all those dates are lies, History has a similar list. And we all know they’re stuffy enough to get it right.

But the argument against all of those events deserving a holiday is simple: They aren’t “It Was A Good Day.” The song, a cheerfully haunting jam reminiscing on a bright spot at the height of L.A.‘s gang wars — Deadspin writer Barry Petchesky noted that on January 20, 1992, L.A.’s MLK Day Parade was “marred by the looting of a local mall” — deserves to be taught in history classes nationwide. Plus, by commemorating such a summery, beer-and-blunt jam in January, it’s one small ray of hope during the dead of winter. Think of the productivity boost it would provide!

Speed, momentum, and multitudes of political reach-arounds are the key to getting some intern in Washington to write up a bill declaring a holiday for the heavy-hitters to sign in some goofball photo-op. With that in mind, National Good Day Day has something the John Marshall Day stooges don’t: the weight of the Internet behind it. So let’s get this mofo signed! We’ve only got about two hours before everyone on Twitter forgets about it.