Today Is World Smile Day

Today is World Smile Day. It was inspired by those famous yellow smiley faces.

There’s a World Smile Day website, and it says Congress made a proclamation encouraging people to do an act of kindness or help at least one person smile, or both.

Harvey Ball, a commercial artist from Worcester, Mass. created the smiley face in 1963. He was hired by the State Mutual Life Assurance Company to create a smiley face to improve company morale. It took off from there. It started slowly but really exploded in the 1970s.

Ball was concerned that his smiley face was becoming over commercialized, so he thought one day a year should be dedicated to smiling and doing acts of kindness. The first one was in 1999.

The smiley face became so popular that the U.S. Post Office issued a stamp with the smiley face.