I didn’t know that it existed at all, let alone that it was today. But today is World Standards Day, except when it isn’t. The Atlantic:

Happy World Standards Day! The International Organization for Standardization has declared today, October 14, to be a celebration of the hundreds of engineering and scientific standards from which we all benefit—everything from the length of a meter to the two-letter country code system.

It is a day, in other words, to commemorate cross-national conformance, connection, and collaboration.

But the U.S. will not be observing World Standards Day today, on World Standards Day. Instead, the U.S. will observe World Standards Day next week, on October 23.

U.S. Observes ‘World Standards Day’ on Non-Standard Day – Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic (14 October 2014)

There is a reason. It does kinda make sense. A bit. But that’s no fun at all. Move along if you’d rather have a little chortle like I did or read the full piece if you want to see what gauzy excuse the US has.