When:
🗓️ October 6
Where:
🌐 Everywhere
Since:
1986
Mad Hatter Day was created in 1986
by a group of computer technicians in Colorado
as a holiday to celebrate silliness.
The original stories of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Caroll were illustrated by John Tenniel who depicted the Hatter with a price tag on his hat saying “In this style 10/6”.
The 10/6 was how English price tags in that time would depict the price of 10 shillings and 6 pence.
Because the creators of this holiday were from the USA, the date was chosen in month/day format.
If the date was to be interpret the European way, Mad Hatter Day would have been on 10th of June.
The Mad Hatter in the story of Alice in Wonderland was not a far fetched character design.
In the late 1800’s when hats were made by hand, there were hardly any restriction on the toxicity of materials used.
To shape the hats, the materials were often treated with chemicals that contained unhealthy amounts of mercury.
Being exposed to mercury for a long time causes “erethism”, also known as “mad hatter syndrome”.
