The Leif Erikson Day meme pops up annually on October 9, often referencing an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants. Popular awareness of the holiday skyrocketed after 2001, when SpongeBob woke up and declared it to be Leif Erikson Day while wearing a fake red beard and remarking “hinga dinga durgen.”
Although the cartoon character claims to have made up the holiday in the show, it’s a real observance in the U.S. and parts of Canada recognizing the man who landed on North American shores long before Christopher Columbus and committed much less violence about it, despite his Viking roots.
What is Leif Erikson Day?
The holiday honors the man who led a Viking expedition across the Atlantic and came upon the North American continent, including the east coast of what is now the U.S. Historians believe this happened around the year 1,000, but the exact date is impossible to determine.
The U.S. federal government first recognized Leif Erikson Day in 1935, 10 years after President Calvin Coolidge declared that the Viking was the first man to discover America. This continued the tradition of ignoring the people who were already there when both Erikson and Columbus arrived.
Today’s U.S. and Canadian residents did nothing to celebrate the holiday for many decades other than glance at the calendar and wonder who Leif Erikson was until that episode of SpongeBob SquarePants aired after the turn of the new millennium.
Why is Leif Erikson Day on October 9?
Since there’s no way to determine exactly what day Erikson landed on American shores, legislators chose October 9 because that was when a ship called the Restauration arrived in New York with the nation’s first Norwegian immigrants in 1825.
On its three-month voyage, 52 people survived on board the sloop, which was an impressive feat considering how small those ships are and how harrowing the trip across the Atlantic could be. The story was so impressive that the Restauration had the honor of gracing a postage stamp 100 years after its arrival.
The Leif Erikson Day SpongeBob meme
Most people outside of Norwegian communities went on to ignore this holiday until February 3, 2001, when the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “Bubble Buddy” aired to U.S. audiences.
The episode opens with SpongeBob waking up wearing a large red beard and announcing the holiday: “Hey, everybody! It’s Leif Erikson Day! Hinga dinga durgen.”
It’s later established that in the SpongeBob universe, the character made up the holiday because he wants every day to be something he can celebrate. The rest of the episode has little to do with Leif Erikson and instead revolves around his attempts to find someone to play with.
The meme in 2024
Over 23 years later people would still be celebrating Leif Erikson Day with memes, often posting a screenshot or clip from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode. Others come up with their own ways of commemorating Erikson’s accomplishments, especially if it gives them a chance to point out how terrible and derivative Columbus was.
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