6/3/2023 0 Comments Ri victory day![]() Senate report on the topic.Īs far back as the 1950s, The New York Times wrote that Victory Day – which the paper, like many news outlets then and now, referred to as “V-J Day” – was “always a big legal holiday in Rhode Island.” Author Len Travers, in his “Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days,” remarks: “The tenacity of Rhode Island in celebrating Aug. (Arkansas state employees were given their own birthdays off.) While some websites claim Victory Day used to be a federal holiday, too, that appears to be a myth – there is no mention of it in an authoritative 1999 U.S. 14 commemoration, which had been adopted back in 1949, according to state historian David Ware. Rhode Island has been an outlier with Victory Day since 1975, the year Arkansas lawmakers adopted a new list of legal holidays that left off the state’s Aug. It has always been called “Victory Day” on the statute books, going all the way back to its establishment in 1948. And despite what many residents believe, the legal name of Rhode Island’s holiday was never “V-J Day” (short for “Victory Over Japan”). 14 - when Japan’s surrender was announced in the United States - the holiday is observed on the second Monday in August. While the actual event that Victory Day commemorates happened on Aug. ( WPRI) – Monday is Rhode Island’s 74th annual Victory Day, continuing the state’s custom of being the only place in America that honors the end of World War II with a legal holiday. Īccording to WPRI-TV, Rhode Island has had debates over whether to retain the state holiday, with opponents citing Japan's growing "economic might" in the 1980s and offense to Japanese Americans, but all efforts to remove or rename the holiday have been defeated by " veterans and traditionalists," as well as labor unions.PROVIDENCE, R.I. Initially observed on August 14, the Rhode Island General Assembly enacted legislation in 1966 to observe the holiday on the second Monday in August annually. Rhode Island has observed this day since 1948. In 1975, the holiday was abolished at the Arkansas state level leaving Rhode Island as the only state in the U.S. President Truman's announcement of the surrender started mass celebrations across the United States, which was when he declared September 2 as the official "VJ Day" in 1945. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, and the Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria in the previous week led to the eventual surrender. Victory Day has commemorated the anniversary of Japan's surrender to the Allies in 1945 which ended World War II. Scene made famous by Life magazine photograph In 2015, the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama honored 500 veterans on the 70th anniversary of the end of the war. ![]() ![]() More than one in ten of the states' residents served in the war, and 2,340 (671 Navy or Marines) were killed. Rhode Island retains the date as a formal state holiday in tribute to the number of sailors it sent and lost in the Pacific front. The holiday celebrates the conclusion of World War II and is related to Victory over Japan Day in the United Kingdom and regions of the United States. Furthermore, in 2017, WPRI-TV claimed that Arkansas (which stopped celebrating the day in 1975) and Rhode Island were the only two states to ever celebrate the holiday, though Arkansas's name for the holiday was "World War II Memorial Day." Victory Day is a holiday observed in the United States state of Rhode Island with state offices closed on the second Monday of August. (1) Second Monday in August (Rhode Island and US Space & Rocket Center) (1) Rhode Island state holiday, state offices closed Victory Over Japan Day, VJ Day, World War II Memorial Day ( Arkansas) Crowds celebrating V-J Day in Times Square
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