January 4th, 2014 – NATIONAL SPAGHETTI DAY – NATIONAL TRIVIA DAY

                                           NATIONAL SPAGHETTI DAY

The long, thin cylindrical pasta of Italian and Sicilian origin which is made of semolina or flour and water, known as spaghetti and loved by millions has it’s own special day.  January 4th is National Spaghetti Day and is celebrated annually across the county.
There are a variety of different pasta dishes that are based on spaghetti from spaghetti alla Carbonara or garlic and oil to spaghetti with tomato sauce, meat sauce, bolognese, Alfredo sauce, clam sauce or other sauces.  Spaghetti dishes are traditionally served topped with grated hard cheeses such as Pecorino Romano, Parmesan and Grana Padano.
The word “spaghetti” is plural for the Italian word spaghetto, which is a diminutive of spago, meaning “thin  string” or “twine”.
Spaghetti was offered in restaurants in the United States, around the end of the 19th century, as Spaghetti Italienne (which is believed to have consisted of noodles cooked past al dente and a mild tomato sauce flavored with easily found spices and vegetables such as cloves, bay leaves and garlic).   It was decades later that it became commonly prepared with oregano or basil. 
There is significant debate on the origin of spaghetti however we do know that pasta has been consumed for many many years.  There are records in the Jerusalem Talmud of itrium, a kind of boiled dough, being common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries AD.  A 9th century Arab dictionary describes itriyyaas, string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking. In an 1154 writing for the Norman King of Sicily, itriyya is mentioned being manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily.  Dried pasta became popular in the 14th and 15th centuries due to its easy storage.  People were able to store the dried pasta in ships when exploring the New World.  A century later, pasta was present around the globe during the voyages of discovery. (Wikipedia)
In March of 2009 the world record for the largest bowl of spaghetti was set and then reset in March of 2010 when a Garden Grove California Buca di Beppo restaurant successfully filled a swimming pool with more than 13,780 pounds of pasta.
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Sung to the tune of “On Top of Old Smoky”, the fun children’s song, “On Top of Spaghetti” was written and originally sung by folk singer Tom Glazer with the Do-Re-Mi Children’s Chorus in 1963.
“On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.”

HAPPY NATIONAL SPAGHETTI DAY!

Learn more about spaghetti at http://ilovepasta.org/
NATIONAL SPAGHETTI DAY HISTORY
Within our research, we were unable to find the creator of National Spaghetti Day, an “unofficial” national holiday.

National Trivia Day – January 4

NATIONAL TRIVIA DAY

National Trivia Day is celebrated across the United States each year on January 4.
The word “trivia” is plural for the word “trivium”.
In ancient times, the term “trivia” was appropriated to mean something very new.
Nostalgic college students in the 1960s along with others, began to informally trade questions and answers about the popular culture of their youth.  After writing  “trivia” columns, Columbia University students Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky created the earliest inter-collegiate quiz bowls that tested culturally (and emotionally) significant, yet essentially unimportant facts, which they dubbed “trivia contests”.  Trivia (Dell, 1966) was the first book treating  “trivia” in the radical new sense, authored by Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky.  This book achieved a ranking on the New York Times best seller list.

• Over time, the word “trivia” has come to refer to obscure and arcane bits of dry knowledge as well as nostalgic remembrances of pop culture.
• In North America, the game, Trivial Pursuit. peaked in 1984, a year in which over 20 million games were sold.
• Steven Point, Wisconsin holds the largest current trivia contest at the University of  Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s college radio station WWSP 89.9 FM.  April, 2013 hosted the 44th annual contest which usually has 400 teams ranging from 1 to 150 players.  The contest, which is open to anyone, spans 54 hours over a weekend with eight questions each hour.