First Day of Summer or Sumardagurinn fyrsti in Iceland
First Day of Summer or Sumardagurinn fyrsti in Iceland is held on April 23. Celebrated on the first Thursday after April 18. This event in the third decade of the month April is annual. 
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It is a celebration of the start of the first summer month (Harpa) of the old Icelandic calendar. The old calendar had six months of short days (winter) and six months of nightless days (summer), so even though the climate of late April in Iceland is not very summer-like (on fourteen occasions between 1949 and 2015 the average temperature in the capital, Reykjavík, has been below freezing), the day marks the lengthening of the days and the harsh winter being over. Parades and organized entertainment are held in various places around Iceland on the first day of summer.
Similar holidays and events, festivals and interesting facts
Engineer's Day in Iceland on April 10
Mother’s Day on May 10 (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bonaire, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Dem. Rep., Congo, Rep., Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Gabon, Gambia, Greenland, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Myanmar, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Singapore, Sint Maarten, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay, Vietnam, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe);
Christ's Ascension on May 14 (or Kristi Himmelfartsdag in Norway);
Whit Monday on May 25 (celebrated on the day after Pentecost);
Seamen's Day in Iceland on June 7 (celebrated on the first Sunday in June);
Icelandic National Day on June 17 (celebrates the independence of Iceland from Kingdom of Denmark in 1944);
Jónsmessa in Iceland on June 24
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