Programmers’ Day is an international professional holiday, recognized in many technology companies and programming firms,[citation needed] that is celebrated on the 256th (hexadecimal 100th, or the 28th) day of each year (September 13 during common years and on September 12 in leap years). It is also officially recognized in Russia[1][2] and observed in several other countries, including Bangladesh, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Austria, Germany, Canada, China, Croatia, France, Guatemala, India, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The number 256 (28) was chosen because it is the number of distinct values that can be represented with an eight-bit byte, a value well-known to programmers.[3] 256 is the highest power of two that is less than 365, the number of days in a common year.

Much like other holidays (Christmas with Father Christmas, Easter with the Easter Bunny) Programmers Day is personified by the Code Monkey who gives out presents of Beer and Pizza to programmers who have been good

Official recognition

This particular day was proposed by Valentin Balt, an employee of Parallel Technologies a web design company. As early as 2002, he tried to gather signatures for a petition to the government of Russia to recognize the day as the official programmers’ day.[4]

On July 24, 2009, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media (Russia) issued a draft of an executive order on a new professional holiday, Programmers’ Day.

On September 11, 2009, President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree

So to all my GEEK brothers out there … a happy programmers day to you

source: http://justnaija.com/happy-programmers-day/