Why is World Semicolon Day on April 16?

Project Semicolon says the date is the anniversary of the organisation officially becoming a nonprofit, which its own history page places in 2015. The date is older than that: the movement's archived website already carried an April 16 event in 2014 and kept a page headed April 16, 2013.

Is World Semicolon Day the same as World Suicide Prevention Day?

No. World Suicide Prevention Day falls on 10 September and is organised by the International Association for Suicide Prevention, with the World Health Organization as co-sponsor.

Who runs World Semicolon Day?

Project Semicolon, the nonprofit that publishes the day's page, recruits tattoo studios for it and collects the stories people post under its hashtag.

World Semicolon Day

Next celebratedFriday, April 16, 2027

The semicolon stands for a sentence that could have ended and did not. On April 16 people share their stories and tattoo studios ink the mark, on a date the movement's archived site carried two years before the nonprofit existed.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEApril 16

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYAwareness

SUBCATEGORYMental Health

ORIGIN

Institutional Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

Project Semicolon

FIRST OBSERVED

2013

“The movement's own site kept a page headed April 16, 2013. Its entire text read: Where it all began.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The date is older than its explanation.

Project Semicolon, which runs the day, says April 16 marks the anniversary of the organisation officially becoming a nonprofit. The earliest surviving capture of its website, from March 2014, already listed an April 16 event.

Read the organiser's own accountvia projectsemicolon.com

INTRO

Archived pages carry the date before the nonprofit existed

A page on the movement's archived website is headed April 16, 2013, and its whole text reads: Where it all began. World Semicolon Day, Project Semicolon's annual call for stories, tattoos and vigils, falls on that date.

The organisation now gives a different account of the date. It says the day marks the anniversary of its officially becoming a nonprofit. Its own history page puts that year at 2015.

So the date was on the movement's own site before the nonprofit existed. Neither the organisation's page nor the archived site says how the two came to line up.

ORIGINS

World Semicolon Day history

INTRODUCTION

The mark at the centre of this day began as a printer's experiment. Cecelia Watson dates the semicolon to Venice in 1494, in the shop of Aldus Manutius, who paired a comma with a colon and set the two halves together.

For most of its life it stayed a question of typography. Then a campaign asked people to draw it on their own skin, and the tattoos followed.

CHAPTER 01

A mark cut for one book

Manutius issued Pietro Bembo's essay De Aetna as his first literary Latin text, and the new mark was cut for it by the Bolognese type designer Francesco Griffo. Watson describes a hybrid whose form combines half of each parent mark. Much of the punctuation invented in the same burst did not last, among it a mirror-image question mark meant for rhetorical questions.

CHAPTER 02

A hashtag with a date attached

The Internet Archive's earliest copy of the movement's site was taken in March 2014. It lists an upcoming event called Project Semicolon416, set for April 16. By the following year the same domain carried Project Semicolon Inc.'s Green Bay address and a walk listed in De Pere, Wisconsin.

CHAPTER 03

What the organisation says now

The organisation's own history pairs becoming a nonprofit with the opening of its first office, in Wisconsin. It runs the day now from a page that counts down to the next April 16.

Amy Bleuel, whom the organisation names as its founder, told USA Today why she had started it: "I started it to honor my father." Bleuel died in 2017, and Project Semicolon continued without her.

The day itself has no such paper trail. Nothing in the organisation's pages or the archived site names who put April 16 on the calendar, and no founding announcement for it has surfaced. What survives is the practice itself: the date, the mark, and the yearly ask to use them.

TIMELINE

Timeline

The semicolon is cut in Venice

In the printing house of Aldus Manutius, a comma and a colon were joined into one new mark for Pietro Bembo's essay De Aetna.

An April 16 event on the site

The earliest surviving capture of projectsemicolon.org, taken that March, lists an upcoming event called Project Semicolon416.

Project Semicolon becomes a nonprofit

The organisation's own history dates its incorporation to this year, along with its first office in Wisconsin.

USA Today covers the tattoo

USA Today reported in July on people getting semicolon tattoos and quoted Amy Bleuel on why she had started the campaign.

A newspaper marks the day

The Times Leader, in the Ohio Valley, ran an article for World Semicolon Day on April 16 of that year.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why World Semicolon Day Matters

STUDIOS

For a studio, taking part means offering the tattoo that day.

Project Semicolon recruits studios with ready-made emails and asks them to offer semicolon tattoos on April 16 at any price point they choose. Shops that join go onto a public list the organisation says it is compiling.

CAMPUSES

Counselling services build events on the date

NAMI's StigmaFree calendar carries the day as a recurring April 16 entry. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Farmingdale State College both ran campus events on April 16, 2025.

GUIDANCE

Public storytelling meets published guidance

What the day asks for is a personal story, posted in public under a hashtag. The consensus recommendations for reporting on suicide, written by SAVE with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Poynter Institute and others, set out what the field asks of anyone writing about suicide in public.

GET INVOLVED

Resources and Support

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Free and confidential, 24/7/365 in the United States. Call, text or chat with a counselor.

FIND

Find A Helpline

Find A Helpline. Free, confidential helplines listed by country, for anyone outside the United States.

NAMI

NAMI HelpLine

NAMI HelpLine. Information, resources and referrals for people affected by mental health conditions.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide

Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide. Consensus guidance on how to write and post about suicide, from SAVE with AFSP and the Poynter Institute.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe World Semicolon Day

Read the reporting recommendations first

The day runs on personal stories posted in public, which is exactly the ground the consensus recommendations for reporting on suicide cover. They run to two pages, set out as a list of what to avoid and what to write instead.

Share a story under the day's hashtag

Project Semicolon asks people to post with #WorldSemicolonDay and to say what the mark stands for in their own case. Its page for the day collects the request alongside the rest of its programme.

ASK

Ask a local studio to join the list

The organisation says it is compiling a public list of shops offering semicolon tattoos on or around April 16, and signs them up through a form on its site. Shops set their own price, so a studio can join without committing to free work.

ATTEND

Attend a vigil or a moment of silence

Project Semicolon lists vigils, moments of silence and creative tributes among the ways the day is kept. Its page asks people to host or attend a gathering as well as post online.

SUPPORT

Support the organisation that runs the day

Donating is one of the ways to take part that Project Semicolon lists on its page for April 16. It is the same organisation that runs the shop network and publishes the day's materials.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know World Semicolon Day?

1 / 8

In which city was the semicolon first set in type?

Answer

No. It has no official or public-holiday status that could be found, and a full-text search of the US Federal Register returns no document naming it, so April 16 is an ordinary working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

17sources

14primary records

9independently dated

Primary records

Project Semicolon

World Semicolon Day

The organiser's own page for the day, its date and what it asks people to do.

World Semicolon Day

Institutional Initiative

The date is older than its explanation.

A mark cut for one book

A hashtag with a date attached

What the organisation says now

The semicolon is cut in Venice

An April 16 event on the site

Project Semicolon becomes a nonprofit

USA Today covers the tattoo

A newspaper marks the day

Counselling services build events on the date

Public storytelling meets published guidance

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

Find A Helpline

NAMI HelpLine

Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide

Read the reporting recommendations first

Share a story under the day's hashtag

Ask a local studio to join the list

Attend a vigil or a moment of silence

Support the organisation that runs the day

How well do you know World Semicolon Day?

In which city was the semicolon first set in type?

Is World Semicolon Day a public holiday?

Why is World Semicolon Day on April 16?

Is World Semicolon Day the same as World Suicide Prevention Day?

Who runs World Semicolon Day?

Related holidays

World Suicide Prevention Day

National Tattoo Story Day

National Suicide Prevention Month

Turn every day into a moment your audience actually shows up for.