25 October - Shambel Abebe Bikila death anniversary

Shambel Abebe Bikila (August 7, 1932 – October 25, 1973) was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He is the first sub-Saharan African Olympic gold medallist, winning his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal. In turn, he became the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time.

07 August : Mata Hari birth anniversary

Margaretha Geertruida "Margreet" MacLeod (7 August 1876 – 15 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari, was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. Despite her admitting under interrogation to taking money to work as a German spy many people still believe she was innocent because the French Army needed a scapegoat. She was executed by firing squad in France.

07 August - National Handloom Day

The National Handloom Day is observed annually on 7th of August to honour the handloom weavers in the country and also highlight the handloom industry.

National Handloom Day seeks to highlight the contribution of handloom to the socioeconomic development of the country and increase income of the weavers.

The Union government had declared 7 the August as the National Handloom Day in July 2015 with the objective to generate awareness about the importance of handloom industry.

August 7 was chosen as the National Handloom Day to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement which was launched on this day in 1905 in the Calcutta Town hall to protest against partition of Bengal by the British Government. The movement had aimed at reviving domestic products and production processes.

The first National Handloom Day was inaugurated on 7 August 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centenary Hall of Madras University in Chennai.

Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani tweeted “On 3rd National Handloom Day, let us pledge our support to weavers by promoting our diverse handloom sector & adopting it in our daily lives."

#NationalHandloomDay