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Children's Day in Paraguay

Children's Day in Paraguay is held on August 16. This event in the second decade of the month August is annual.

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Every August 16, the Day of the Child is commemorated in Paraguay, in remembrance of the martyred children who offered their lives in defense of the Homeland in the bloody battle of Acosta Ñu, during the war against the Triple Alliance.

By 1869, the war had decimated the population of Paraguay and, lacking men, Marshal Francisco Solano López recruited children between ten and fourteen years old to join the army and with them he went to the battle front. In the Battle of Acosta Ñu, together with only 600 professional soldiers, about 3,500 children dressed as adults, war veterans, old men and women faced the troops of Pedro II of Brazil who had about 20,000 men.

On July 19, 1948 the provisional president J. Manuel Frutos, through Decree N° 27.484, fixed August 16 as Paraguayan Children's Day and the word "Rubió Ñu" was replaced by "Acosta Ñu" as the place of the battle fought on August 16, 1869.

Similar holidays and events, festivals and interesting facts

Feast day of the Assumption of Mary on August 15 (Christian feast day, one of the Catholic holy days of obligation a public holiday in Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia, Burundi, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Seychelles, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, and Vanuatu);