National Checklist Day
The National Checklist Day is celebrated annually on October 30. But do you know the whole truth about this holiday? Does it even really exist?
What Is This Day?
The Internet has various resources about the National Checklist Day, which is celebrated on October 30. On this date 1935 there was the famous crash of a military Boeing Model 299 aircraft [1]. There was a pilot's error that made the plane vulnerable and resulted in a disaster. This tragedy served as the impetus for creating the first checklist for humanity. To foster the aviation safety at the beginning and then to provide help in other industries. Then the usage of checklists expanded further to aviation and other industries.
Articles on the National Checklist Day follow the template on how to “Celebrate National Checklist Day” and cite each other. In other words, much of the content is about how the checklist resulted in bringing ultimate happiness to our world. “Use checklists everywhere for all the tasks; they'll help you in any situation.”
While it would be easy to adopt these established templates, that's not what this blog is about. Let's not take this simple task and, instead, do a bit of investigating.
And by the way, our humble and valuable tool, the checklist, appeared about 100 years before that fateful crash. People tend to think the opposite way after misreading “The Checklist Manifesto” [2] book.
Tracing the Evident Roots of National Checklist Day
The internet isn’t exactly the best place to explore the history of words, but some tools can still help. The already mentioned articles on National Checklist Day don’t tell much about its origins.
Apart from that, what does “National” mean here? Which nation? It’s about the USA, where Boeing operates. And National Checklist Day is said to have been officially established sometime in the 1950s [3]. For more than 70 years, on October 30, Americans supposedly celebrate by filling out checklists, exchanging them, and even dressing up as checkmarks.
Sounds plausible, but I intentionally misled you with that last line in the previous paragraph. Apologies. Let’s dive in.
Tracing the Dark Roots of National Checklist Day
No matter how much scanned literature you find online, there’s no trace of National Checklist Day. This might disappoint holiday enthusiasts, but it seems the 75th-anniversary celebration plans should be postponed.
The earliest social media mentions of National Checklist Day appear in tweets from 𝕏 (formerly Twitter). On October 18, 2010, a group of suspicious accounts announced the upcoming day, suggesting users check something off their lists. An interesting promotional strategy, no doubt. The joke was that they proposed October 20 as the date. What a simple omission.
Perhaps 𝕏’s youth could mean an earlier trace might be found on the Internet, and indeed, there is one. Only, it predates the tweets by just a year. This source doesn’t look like the original idea to celebrate the National Checklist Day, but it’s the best of what’s known for now. If you know a better source, please let me know. This blog has a habit of updating material.
And that’s it about the National Checklist Day. It’s absent in books, missing from U.S. presidential proclamations, and only began to gain traction in the late 2000s.
I can’t say my investigation is a completed task now. If new facts arise, I would be happy to make it more complete.
So, Should We Celebrate National Checklist Day?
Using checklists definitely makes life easier for humanity. It’s worth emphasizing. Without checklists, some professions might not even be possible. Take aviation, for example. After that ill-fated military demonstration, there was a post-crash investigation, during which pilots from Boeing discovered that checklists can improve pilot flying safety and prevent accidents. So they came up with four checklists for different situations.
The modern world defines flying safely for planes in a much more complex way and involves even more steps. Moreover, today aircraft engineers use checklists to build planes. And pilots use digital checklists when the paper-based ones are not sufficient. Checklists for small planes might look like self-made reminders — a box with switches.
Personally, I use checklists to handle the daily routine as well as cope with not that often tasks like packing a suitcase for the vacation. Otherwise, I’ll forget something, undoubtedly.
So, as unofficial as this holiday may be, let’s celebrate it and make it real! Happy National Checklist Day to you, dear subscribers and readers! I hope this day will once become the international holiday. And if you want to dive deeper into what a checklist is, here’s a dedicated article on the topic.
Surprised to learn that the National Checklist Day is not what it tends to be? Subscribe to the blog “So, the List,” there are many more amazing things about lists and checklists in the world. You’ll also learn how to solve many issues using these simple but powerful tools.
List of Links
[1] “Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress” from Wikipedia
[2] Atul Gawande, “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right”, ISBN 978-0312430009
[3] National Checklist Day from the Days of the Year site
