Today North Korea celebrates Kim Jong Il’s birthday: known as the "Day of the Shining Star." In this article, I will try to briefly outline the history of these holidays as its leaders have changed, and the birthday of the man whose ideas served as a prototype for North Korea: Joseph Stalin.

Stalin’s actual birthday was December 18 (or December 6 in the official Julian calendar of the Russian Empire) although he later changed it to December 21: the anniversary of a 1905 uprising in Moscow. This was the day which was celebrated in the USSR.