World Blood Donor Day is day dedicated to "thanking and celebrating voluntary non-remunerated blood donors". It occurs on June 14, the birthday of Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner , was an Austrian-born American biologist and physician of Jewish origin. He is noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the...

, the creator of the ABO blood group system

ABO blood group system

The ABO blood group system is the most important blood type system in human blood transfusion. The associated anti-A antibodies and anti-B antibodies are usually IgM antibodies, which are usually produced in the first years of life by sensitization to environmental substances such as food,...

, for which he won the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

. The first day was held in 2005.

One of the main goals of the World Blood Donor Day is to ensure the availability of 'safe blood' for transfusion.