On September 14, Ukraine celebrates Tank Forces Day, while worldwide people commemorate the founding of the international organization OPEC and U.S. National Anthem Day. According to the church calendar under the new style, one of the twelve major Christian feasts falls on this date—the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord—while under the old style, the Beginning of the Indiction and the day of Saint Simeon the Stylite are observed, UNN writes.
Tank Forces Day of Ukraine
An official holiday established by Decree No. 574/2023 of the President of Ukraine dated September 9, 2023, to honor the courage, heroism, and military valor of Ukrainian tank crews.
The date is tied to a new tradition and has definitively replaced the Soviet concept of celebrating "Tankers' Day" on the second Sunday of September.
Tank units are a powerful striking force of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, playing a decisive role in breaching enemy defenses, repelling armored attacks, supporting infantry, and liberating occupied Ukrainian territories during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war.
OPEC Founding Day (OPEC Day)
A commemorative date in the history of the global economy, marking the conclusion on September 14, 1960, of the Baghdad Conference, at which five oil-exporting countries—Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela—created the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The creation of this intergovernmental organization was aimed at coordinating oil policy, ensuring the stabilization of raw-material prices on international markets, guaranteeing reliable supplies to consumers, and protecting the national economic interests of oil-producing countries.
U.S. National Anthem Day (National Anthem Day)
A historical date established to commemorate the events of September 14, 1814, during the Anglo-American War.
American lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key, watching the British fleet's nighttime bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, saw in the morning that the American flag was still flying over the fort and, inspired by this, wrote a poem titled "The Defence of Fort M'Henry."
Set to a popular melody, these lines came to be known as "The Star-Spangled Banner"—"the flag studded with stars"—and in 1931 were officially adopted as the National Anthem of the United States of America by a decision of Congress.
World Atopic Eczema Day (World Atopic Eczema Day)
A global medical and social observance established in 2018 at the initiative of the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients' Associations (EFA) and the international organization GlobalSkin.
The purpose of the day is to raise awareness of atopic dermatitis as a chronic inflammatory skin disease that causes intense itching, pain, sleep disturbances, and significant psychological distress, as well as to support patients and overcome the sociocultural stigma surrounding the disease.
The Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord
According to the new calendar, Orthodox and Greek Catholic believers celebrate the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord—one of the twelve major feasts of the liturgical year.
The feast was established to commemorate the finding of the Lord's Cross by Saint Helena, the empress, in Jerusalem in 326 near Golgotha and its solemn elevation by Patriarch Macarius before a crowd of believers, as well as in honor of the relic's return from Persian captivity by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in 628.
This day requires a strict fast and is accompanied by a special rite in which the Cross is brought to the center of the church for prayerful veneration.
According to the old calendar, believers observe the Beginning of the Indiction —the ecclesiastical New Year, signifying the beginning of a new liturgical year according to the Byzantine tradition, which dates back to the First Ecumenical Council of 325 and Emperor Constantine the Great.
Also on this day, the memory of Saint Simeon the Stylite is commemorated - a 5th-century Syrian Christian ascetic who founded a new form of asceticism by spending 37 years in prayer atop a pillar tower, as well as that of his mother Martha and the forty holy virgin martyrs.