Tiki events in history, or excuses to celebrate

Hello folks, I tried to search to see if this thread has been done already, but got lost in the sheer mass to wade through when using the logical search terms of calendar, events, history or of course tiki.
If you know of past threads, please educate me, because I missed them.

If you were to make a Tiki Calendar and were to populate it with cool factoids like "on this day in Tiki history" or excuses to learn a new cocktail to celebrate a bit of Tiki Lore--what would they be?

Here are a few ideas, please add more that you can think of:

January 8 (1790) Bounty Day, the day Pitcairn Islanders celebrate the burning of the ship the Bounty by Fletcher Christian to avoid recapture of the ship by Captain Bligh or the British navy.
January 18th (1778) celebrate Captain Cook as the first "tourist" to visit the Hawaiian islands by landing at Kauai (the Sandwich Islands on that day)
Februay 22nd (1907) Birthday of Donn Beach of Don the Beachcomber (aka Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt) founder of Tiki restarant decor and another inventor of the Mai Tai.
April 5th (1722) Easter Island was reconnected to the outside world with the first ship to visit from anywhere for over ??? years, Captained by Jacob Roggerveen.
April 17 (1909) Ellery Chun, inventor of the Hawaiian shirt was born (I personally celebrate this day, and will gladly meet on that Friday at Forbidden Island or the Kona Club to mourn this visionary in 2009)
May 8 (1819) King Kamehameha the Great, king of the nation of Hawaii (aka Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kûnuiâkea) passed away.
July 1 (1967) American Samoa's constitution was ratified.
July 31 (2003) Book of Tiki published by Sven Kirsten
August 7 (1947) Thor Heyerdal lands the raft the Kon-Tiki on the Island of Raroia after sailing from Peru.
September 4 (1967) Giligan's Island last episode broadcast celebrate or mourn, you decide.
October 28 (1835) Maori Declaration of Independence was signed by the United Tribes of New Zealand
December 10 (1902) Birthday of Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron founder of Tiki restaurant decor and another inventor of the Mai Tai.

December 25 (1946) Birthday of James William "Jimmy" Buffet (I keeed I keeed, just foolin' but you get the idea)

Ideas to riff on:

Yma Sumac
Les Baxter
Martin Denny
Some wood chopper lived to this date with all his fingers
Leeteg
Betty Page first poses in leopard print.
Fez invented
Last Kiln load at Orchids of Hawaii fired on this date
Josh Agle signs the name SHAG for the first time

I'm sure we could come up with more

Ke nono au, e kala mua mai, i keia manawa ho'i.

[ Edited by: coruscate 2008-12-01 18:12 ]

Dec. 4th, 08. Frankies tiki room 24/7, 365!

A lot of those things were in Swanky's 2008 Tiki Daze calendar. I'm going to miss not having one this year.

Ahh, that's right!
Thanks for that reminder.
No 2009 calendars?
I hope all is well with Swanky, or if that was a special ting for 2008.
I read his blog and the urban landscape differently because of it.
I never got off my a** to order a 2008 because I am swimming in them already and literally out of wall space.
But that's exactly what I'm talking about.