Skip to main content
Sky HISTORY - This Day in HISTORY
On this day:

National High Five Day

Slap Happy

Are your palms feeling particularly rosy this morning? That’s because it’s National High Five Day! Every third Thursday in April, everyone is expected to engage in appreciative hand-slapping even more than usual. Which, personally, is hard to imagine because, as you’ll realise if you ever meet me, I do like high-five an extraordinary amount. I mean, every few seconds. It’s pretty unbearable.Legend has it this uncontrollable high-fiving started at a university in Virginia USA, where high-fives and lemonade were handed out, which sounds like a dangerous combination.

Now people all over the planet slap themselves delirious on this particular day, raising money for charity with sponsored ‘high-five-athons’ which sounds easier, but louder, than the traditional fun run. Just don’t ever do that thing where you go in for a high-five and the other person replies with a fist-bump and you stand there with your hand wrapped around their fist, shaking it gently. That’s the high-five equivalent of blasphemy.