20 July

Space Exploration Day (AKA National Moon Day) is celebrated annually on July 20th to commemorate the first crewed moon landing by the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was officially proclaimed a holiday in the United States by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

Famously, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, two-thirds of the Apollo 11 crew, were the first people to walk on the moon, watched by an audience around the world. As Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, he uttered his famous words, "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind".

They spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft and collected 21.5 kilograms (47½ pounds) of lunar material to bring back to earth.

In honour of space explorers past, present and future, we are drinking a Moonwalk, a vintage cocktail with an otherworldly hint of absinthe created in 1969 by Joe Gilmore at The American Bar at The Savoy Hotel.

Día del Amigo

Today is Día del Amigo, AKA Friend's Day, a Latin American celebration of the wonderful thing that is friendship... Well, it's Friend's Day today in Argentina. Paraguay celebrates it a little later, Peru a little earlier, while the greeting cards industry also has its own version in the US in August.

Why today? Because the founder of Día del Amigo realised, when watching Neil Armstrong et al land on the moon on this day in 1969, that the world was united in friendship -- because everyone had their eyes on that same screen.

In Argentina, today is an occasion for dinner with friends, typically, and to catch up on old times. So, if you've a mate you haven't seen for a while, tonight is the night to get things moving. Invite a friend out for a Tres Amigos Daiquiri, which is, confusingly, more of a Margarita than a Daiquiri.