Bilbo's Random Thought Collection: National Hat Day

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

National Hat Day

Today, January 15th, is National Hat Day, on which people are encouraged to wear their favorite hats or hats particular to their occupation. Nurses wear their caps, chefs wear their toques, football players and firefighters wear their helmets, military personnel wear their berets, kepis, field caps, flight caps, or "wheels," and other workers wear their specialized headgear to work and to various events. Or just for the hell of it ...

A side note about military headgear: dress hats worn by field-grade (majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels) and general officers in the Air Force are decorated with embroidered clouds and lightning bolts, and are colloquially known as "darts and farts" hats; the embroidered acorns and oak leaves on the hats worn by senior Army personnel are called "scrambled eggs."

January 15th was supposedly chosen as National Hat Day in part because it commemorates the day in 1797 when, according to a possibly apocryphal story, haberdasher John Hetherington wore a "tall silk hat" so unusual that caused a riot. According to a report of the day,

John Hetherington... was arraigned before the Lord Mayor yesterday on a charge of breach of the peace and inciting to riot, and was required to give bonds in the sum of £500 [for having] appeared upon the public highway wearing upon his head what he called a silk hat... a tall structure, having a shiny lustre, and calculated to frighten timid people.... several women fainted at the unusual sight, while children screamed, dogs yelped, and a young [boy] was thrown down by the crowd which had collected and had his right arm broken.

And lest we forget, the latest in popular headgear, particularly on the extreme right, is the tinfoil hat, supposedly worn for protection against mind control by the evil government, surveillance by aliens, or other imagined persecutions. Tinfoil hats come in many styles, from the most basic ...