Have you ever wondered how National S’mores Day came to be? Or maybe National Leave the Office Early Day? One man right here in North Dakota has made it his priority to make every single day a celebration and the share the history behind these days.

Marlo Anderson might sound like a familiar name and you have probably seen him a lot on Good Day Dakota throughout the years as our KX Tech Expert.

He started out as a local entrepreneur and he and his wife started their own silk screen printing business.

Anderson tells KX he’s always been a popcorn lover and little over 7 years ago, he was trying to figure out when National Popcorn Day was and couldn’t find any information online about it. And that’s what hatched an idea that has since reached people worldwide

CEO and founder of National Day Calendar Marlo Anderson says, “You know Popcorn Day is on January 19th, but where did this day start and where did it come from? And I was shocked even 7 years ago we are the age of information right and why couldn’t find any information on this.”

That’s when Marlo Anderson really started digging into all these national days. He recruited a good friend and started working nights and weekends, putting together information about how each national day came to be. And just like that– this fun little project turned into something bigger than he ever thought.

“About 6 months into that I had a conversation and she kind of had to step away from it because of the pressure this,” says Anderson. “And I was just shocked by this conversation because of what kind of pressure is this we are just writing these articles or whatever. That’s when I started to understand the press was starting to use the articles that we were writing as source material for morning talk shows across the country.”

They were getting hundreds of calls from across the country and thousands of emails from people wanting comments about the national days and the research they were doing. Anderson who was doing this as a hobby still had a full-time job and was actively involved with many other projects. He tells me it wasn’t until a live interview with FOX News that he knew he couldn’t do it ALL anymore.

“I was talking this whole story right and about 2 minutes into this the reporter that was interviewing me,” says Anderson. “And remember now I am live on Fox News and she goes what does this have to do with National Puppy Day? And you know I just kind of froze and I took the one hat off and put another hat on and started talking about puppy day.”

That’s when he made the decision to turn the National Day Calendar into a full-time business. They now have over 13 million followers and track nearly 1,500 National Days, National Weeks and National Months. They have been featured on The Ellen Show, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Kimmel, Good Morning America, and many others.

While they’ve had major success, Marlo, his wife Alice and the rest of the National Day Calendar team say what keeps them coming back every day is the joy they have been able to share with the rest of the world.

National Day Calendar Partner Alice Anderson says, “Celebrating every day and making people smile, making people smile and giving people something to smile about.”

“It gives people a reason to actually get together and we hear about this all the time,” Marlo adds. “If it wasn’t for the fact of national days people wouldn’t have that excuse to call up their friend and say let’s go have doughnut because it’s National Doughnut Day.”

Last year they were the number one trending topic 457 times. They get anywhere from 20 to 25-thousand National Day applications a year but only a select few do actually get added to the calendar.

If you do want to submit your own National Day you can do that on their website, click here.