04 October, 2017
This is What's Trending Today...
World Animal Day has been celebrated on October 4 for many years.
The World Animal Day website says it was first celebrated in 1925 in Berlin, Germany on a different date. It moved to October 4 in 1929.
October 4 is the day Roman Catholics honor Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the patron saint of animals.
What happens on World Animal Day? Aside from Twitter getting filled up with lots of cute photos of animals, the day is designed to promote the rights of animals.
The group that organizes the day wants to make sure animals are treated well around the world.
In honor of the day, many organizations held special events. For example, some shelters held adoption events. Other organizations held workshops to make sure owners learned the best way to take care of their animals.
One Twitter account called TheDodo has almost 500,000 followers. The account owners made a video showing people treating animals "with love."
The video showed a man taking a beached dolphin back to the water, a police officer helping free a deer from a backyard volleyball net and a driver stopping to move a kitten off a busy roadway.
One sports organization, the UEFA Champions League, wrote a story highlighting the soccer players with animal-oriented nicknames.
Over the years, some players have been known as "The Eel," "The Mosquito," "Snake-man" and "The Trout."
Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.
What did you do to mark World Animal Day? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on 21voa.com.
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Words in This Story
patron saint – n. a saint who is believed to protect a particular place or type of person
cute – adj. having a pleasing and usually youthful appearance
promote – v. to make people aware of something
workshop– n. a class or series of classes in which a small group of people learn the methods and skills used in doing something
beached– v. when a large ocean animal has come out of the water onto land and is unable to return to the water.