October Tenth is the National Day of the Republic of China, Taiwan's official name. It's often called Double Ten in Chinese, as it's the tenth day of the tenth month. National Day celebrations feature parades, honor guard demonstrations, speeches by the president, the legislature president and representatives of overseas Taiwanese, and fireworks as well.
In the past, military parades were also part of the celebrations but this has not been the case since the 1990s as Taiwan moved towards becoming a more liberal and eventually democratic society.
October Tenth is celebrated as National Day because it marks the day that an uprising began in the city of Wuchang in central China’s Hubei province in 1911. The uprising led to the Xinhai revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty and ended 2,000 years of imperial rule in China. Three months later, the Republic of China, East Asia’s first democratic republic, was founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen on January 1st the following year.
The Republic of China government relocated to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Since then, National Day celebrations have been held every year except in 1999 and 2009. In 1999, it was cancelled due to the devastating 7.3 magnitude quake that killed more than 2,400 people three weeks previously. In 2009, there were no celebrations because of the havoc wrought by Typhoon Morakot in August that year, in which over 700 people died as a result of landslides.