Not exactly on topic, but had a question that Aidan or someone else from New Zealand or Australia may knoe the answer to. Just noticed on my calendar that New Zealand celebrated "Queen's Birthday" on June 4 and Australia will celebrate it on June 11. I'm confused about the timing of such a holiday though, because the cuurent queen's birthday happens to be April 21. The previous reigning queen's birthday (Victoria) was on May 24... I haven't gone much further than that, but I haven't found any female British monarch who happened to have been born on June 4 or June 11. So why were those specific dates chosen? Is there any actual significance to those days, or did they just decide to have a holiday honoring the queen that time of year regardless of when her actual birthdate may be? Was their a previous queen whose birthday fell on or close to those dates that it still celebrates (perhaps not a reigning queen; i.e. the wife of a reigning king)? Just curious if anyone knows the answer to this. It's always struck me as odd.
Troodon,those dates are the official obsevance.I am a very strong advocate of marking the Queen's Birthday on the actual day itself,which is also the anniversary of the establishment of the Principality of Hutt River back in 1970 as an independent state separate from Australia. Aidan.
Looks like my guess was right, that convenience had a lot more to do with it rather than any significance to the actual date. A lot of Americans don't realize that 4th of July is actually somewhat similar... despite what many believe, the Declaration of Independece wasn't exactly signed on July 4, 1776, at least not yet by everyone. In fact, until August 8, 1776, nobody's signature except John Hancock's was even on it, and he hadn't even finished writing it out until July 8. Nobody outside of the Continental Congress even knew about the Declaration of Independece until well into September... also while the Declaration of Independece declared our intentions to be independent, we weren't actually so until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, when Great Britain actually recognized our independece. (Yet the date that happened is not celebrated...) Anyway, I guess July 4 is close enough for government work lol...
