Joe Miller's Joke Day - August 16

A day to tell a joke in honor of the English comic actor Joseph (or Josias) Miller, who was born in 1684 (exact date unknown). Miller acted at the Drury Lane Theatre at London, England, and was a popular favorite. He died at London, Aug 16, 1738. A book with which Miller had no direct connection, Joe Miller’s Jests, was compiled by John Mottley and first published in 1739. It contained 247 jokes. Revised and expanded hundreds of times, it contained more than 1,500 jokes in the ensuing two centuries. From Joe Miller’s Jests, London, 1739: “A melting Sermon being preached in a country Church, all fell a weeping but one Man, who being asked, why he did not weep with the rest? O! said he. I belong to another Parish.”