March 21, 2023 - International Colour Day | National Countdown Day

Welcome to March 21st, 2023 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate colorful history and the voice that launched our greatest missions. It's likely that somewhere along the way you've noticed two spellings for the word "color", one ending in "or" (the American version) and one ending in "our" (the UK version). Both are correct so why are there two ways to spell "color"? In the early 1800's the United States was just out of the Revolutionary War and Noah Webster decided American English should use shorter, more logical spellings to differentiate ourselves from the British. He dropped the "u" in many words such as flavor, honor and color. He also changed "re" to "er" as in center, changed double "L's" to single and even proposed spelling "soup" with two "o's"! Not all his ideas took hold. On International Colour Day celebrate our British heritage with a "u". One of the most famous voices in the world belonged to Jack King. You may not know the name, but likely you’ve heard of him. Jack was responsible for one of the best-known countdowns in history—the launch of Apollo 11. As people everywhere watched the Saturn V rocket take off into space en route to the Moon, it was Jack King that calmly narrated the entire event. He was the voice of many NASA countdowns, but perhaps none more important than that one in 1969. On National Countdown Day, you can start a countdown of your own…easy as 123…or should we say 3-2-1. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices