Bloomsday as an event began in Dublin on June 16, 1954 when fans and old friends of Joyce decided to mark the 50th anniversary of this fictional day \u2013 also the date of Joyce\u2019s first real-life outing with his wife-to-be Nora. The anniversary was spent retracing the pilgrimage of Leopold Bloom around Dublin. Since then many other cities around the world adopted the tradition, and Bloomsday has flourished ever since.