Cultural Calendar Dates For February 2024

‍February 2024, offers a rich tapestry of cultural and historical events. Building on from January 2024, February has everyhing from US Black History Month to the Lunar New Year. It's a period that celebrates diversity, achievements, and various cultural traditions. Here are the top events, celebrations, and special days in this month's PepTalk diary.

Key dates for your February 2024 calendar

📅 LGBT+ History Month (UK) | 1-29 February 2024

👉 LGBT+ History Month is for everyone, whether you work in education, a museum, a library or an art gallery, a business, a service, or a member of a network/social group or an individual. Celebrate the diversity of humanity and learn from lived experiences.

📅 Black History Month (US) | 1-29 February 2024

👉 Also known as African American History Month, this month-long celebration recognises the achievements and history of African Americans in the U.S. 2024’s theme is “African Americans and the Arts”. This theme is infused with African, Caribbean, and Black American lived experiences.
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📅 National Freedom Day (US) | 1 February 2024

👉 Commemorates the signing of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in 1865. President Abraham Lincoln created a joint House and Senate resolution later ratified in the U.S. Constitution.

📅 Setsubun-Sai (Japan) | 3 February 2024

👉 A festive Japanese day marking the start of spring, involving rituals to chase away evil spirits.

📅 World Cancer Day | 4 February 2024

👉 A global observance to raise cancer awareness and encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. According to the WHO, cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths.

📅 Lunar New Year | 10 February 2024

👉 Celebrations for the new year on the lunar calendar are significant in many East Asian cultures. Did you know? 2024 is the Chinese year of the Wood Dragon.

📅 International Day of Women and Girls in Science | 11 February 2024

👉 This day recognises the crucial roles women and girls play in science and technology. Sadly, in cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, only one in five professionals (22%) is a woman, despite considerable increases in girls taking STEM subjects at school.

📅 Mardi Gras | 13 February 2024

👉 A vibrant festival with parades and costumes, traditionally observed before the Christian Lent season.

📅 St. Valentine’s Day | 14 February 2024

👉 Love, love, love is celebrated worldwide, symbolising love and affection between intimate companions. Did you know? It wasn't until until the Middle Ages that the holiday became associated with love and romance, a tradition that first started from the common belief in France and England that birds started their mating season on February 14.

📅 Random Acts of Kindness Week | 11-17 February 2024

👉 Make kindness the norm with RAK day and week. Read our article on the ROI of kindness: The business case for kindness: how do you crack the code?

📅 World Day of Social Justice | 20 February 2024

👉 A day promoting social justice issues, including poverty, unemployment, and human rights.

📅 International Mother Language Day | 21 February 2024

👉 Highlights the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity for sustainable societies. According to Ethnologue, the top 10 most spoken languages 2023 were English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, Standard Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian and Urdu.

📅 Ash Wednesday | 22 February 2024

👉 Today marks the start of Lent, a significant period in the Christian calendar.

📅 Leap Day | 29 February 2024

👉 Thursday, 29 February is Leap Day, a bonus day in the Gregorian Calendar. Make your move — whether that's proposing marriage or buying a French newspaper published every four years, because the next one's not until 2028.

Of course, this is just a selection of dates! If we've missed any days or events that are key for your HR, Culture or People team, be sure to let us know on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Explore The Rest of 2024

Key cultural calendar dates, weeks and observances for the rest of 2024:

💡 Would you like to mark any of these events with an expert speaker? Let us know, and we’ll find the perfect PepTalk expert for your organisation. Email us at hello@getapeptalk.com or send us a message via the chat. You can also call us on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US). Remember, it’s always a good time to get a PepTalk!

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