[1][2] It includes special events, holidays, federal and state observances, historic anniversaries, and more unusual celebratory traditions.
[3] Bill Chase worked as a newspaper librarian and saw a need for "a single reference source for calendar dates, and for authoritative and current information about various observances throughout the year".
[3] The brothers gathered information on events and the first edition of 2,000 copies was printed for 1958.
[3] Contemporary Books in Chicago, Illinois, took over publication in 1983 and the Chases retired in 1987 from compiling the calendar, which is now handled by an in-house staff of editors and researchers.
Contemporary Books was acquired by Tribune in 1993 and sold to McGraw-Hill Companies in September 2000.