National Tattoo Day – July 17, 2021

Tattooing Is The Art Of Inserting Ink Under The Dermis Layer Of The Skin To Create A Decorative, Symbolic, Or Graphic Design, And On National Tattoo Day, July 17, We Set Time Aside To Learn More About The Tattooing Process And Its Societal Importance And History. If You Don’t Have A Tattoo, You’re Likely To Know Someone Who Does, And If You’ve Asked Them How They Knew At The Time When They Were Getting Inked Whether They Would Still Want That Design On Their Skin Years Or Decades Later, You May Have Just Gotten An Annoyed Look Instead Of An Explanation. There Is Certainly A Fraternal Connection Between People Who Bear Tattoos, A Connection That Those Without Ink Can Never Really Understand. We Asked One Correspondent To Try To Address This Phenomenon, And He Said, “Tattoos Began As A Ceremony, And They’re Still Kind Of Like That. Once You’re Under An Artist’s Needle, It’s A Little Like A Religious Experience. It’s Like The ‘Aha Moment’ People Talk About Having In Business Life. It Illuminates Something You Didn’t See Before.”

History Of National Tattoo Day

National Tattoo Day Has Only Been Celebrated For The Past Couple Years, But The Art Of Tattooing Has Been Around For Millennia. Archaeological Evidence Shows That The Ancient Egyptians Practiced Tattooing And The ‘Iceman,’ Or Ötzi, The Natural Mummy Discovered In Glacial Ice In The Alps In 1991 And Carbon-dated At 3250 B.C., Bore 61 Tattoos. Ancient Tattooing Was Most Widely Practiced Among The Austronesian-speaking Peoples As Far Back As 1500 B.C. They Practiced Tattooing Traditions Including Facial Tattoos That Some Modern Scientists Allege Were Connected To Headhunting Among Warring Indigenous Tribes. Moving Forward To 17Th-century Europe, ‘Painted’ Individuals Were Sometimes Abducted From Their Native Countries And Put On Public Display, The European Abductors Collecting Money For Each Viewing. The Explorer William Dampier Took His Tattooed Slave Jeoly, Known As The ‘Painted Prince,’ On An Extensive Tour To Show Off And Capitalize On Jeoly’s Tattoos.

The First Tattoo Shop To Open In The U.S. Belonged To Martin Hildebrandt, Who Started His Business In New York City In 1846 And Was Sought After By Union And Confederate Soldiers Alike. By 1975, There Were Still Only 40 Tattoo Artists Operating In The U.S., But By 1980 That Number Had Ballooned To 5,000. Today, Tattoo Shops Are In Every City And Medium-sized Town In The Country, And On July 17, We Honor Their Owners Contribution To The American Culture.