Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of President's Day

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

The third Monday of February every year in the United States is a holiday that most people know as Presidents’ Day.  It is not the most glamorous holiday and most people actually forget that it exists until they wonder why they didn’t get any mail. While the day itself isn’t really one that is celebrated, the story behind the day is much more fascinating than most people realize. Learn more about Presidents’ Day, the oddest and most confusing American holiday, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The third Monday of February every year in the United States is a holiday that most people know as President's Day. It's not exactly the most glamorous holiday, and people actually forget that it exists until they wonder why they didn't get any mail. While the day itself really isn't one that's celebrated, the story behind the day is much more fascinating than most people realize. Learn more about President's Day, the oddest and most confusing American holiday on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. If you don't live in the United States and are unaware of President's Day, I don't blame you. And if you do live in the United States and are unaware of President's Day, I still don't blame you.

If you have heard of President's Day, there's a good chance that much of what you know about it is actually wrong. And that's because President's Day doesn't actually exist. Sort of. Understanding why requires an understanding of federal law, the transition of the Julian to Gregorian calendars, and punctuation. I'll start this story with American federal holidays themselves. Prior to the year 1870, there were no official federal holidays. Yeah, people celebrated Christmas in the 4th of July and the president would declare a day of Thanksgiving in November, but there was nothing official about these days. The initial legislation in 1870 only recognized four official holidays, New Year's Day, Independence Day,

Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas. Even then, these first federal holidays only were the first federal holidays only applied to federal employees within the District of Columbia. Federal holidays weren't extended to all federal employees until 1885. In 1879, Congress added a fifth holiday to the list, and for the purposes of this episode, it's the one we care about. George Washington's birthday on February 22nd. The idea of celebrating the birthday of Washington harkens back to monarchies, where the birthday of the monarch is often a national holiday. As the United States doesn't have a monarch, the idea was to honor the first president and the man who was often given the title of father of the country. And this is where we run into our first problem. What exactly was Washington's

birthday? If you could travel back in time and witness the birth of George Washington and then look at the calendar, the date would not be February 22nd. The date that would have been registered on his birth certificate would have been February 11th, 1731. If he was born on February 11th, why, was February 22nd celebrated as the day of Washington's birth. It was because in 1752, Great Britain switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Due to small errors, which accumulated over time, by the year 1752, the calendar was 11 days off from what the date should have been using a solar year. When the British changed over their calendar, it went directly from Wednesday, September 2nd, to Thursday, September 14th, 1752. And this change,

was also applied to American colonies. On top of that, if you remember back to my episode on why we use January 1st as the start of the new year, the English used to start the new year on March 25th. The change in the calendar also resulted in a change of the start of the new year. As Washington was born in February, it meant that in the Gregorian calendar, not only the date of his birth changed, but the year as well. This caused an enormous amount of confusion for everybody who was born under the old calendar. Washington during his lifetime went along with the new calendar and retconed his birthday to the new date. Instead of being born on February 11, 1731, he was now born on February 22, 1732. So that rather awkward explanation is why George Washington's birthday is on February 22nd.

February 22nd was the day celebrated as Washington's birthday federal holiday for almost 100 years. But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. This took several holidays, in particular Washington's birthday, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day, and move them all to a particular Monday on the calendar to create three-day weekends. Since then, several other new federal holidays have also been scheduled on Mondays. In the case of Washington's birthday, the day selected was the third Monday in February. and this means that Washington's birthday can take place between February 15th and February 21st. That means that the federal holiday never takes place on Washington's actual birthday anymore. Washington's birthday wasn't the only presidential birthday which was celebrated.

Many people also celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, who was born on February 12th. Lincoln's birthday, despite often being put on the calendar, was never an official federal holiday. Because Washington and Lincoln's birthdays were so close to each other, many people began to just lump them together and celebrate them both on Washington's birthday, which was the actual federal holiday. So people began informally calling this day, President's Day. The first attempt to formally change the holiday to President's Day dates back to 1951. One of the ideas which was floated was to move the date of President's Day to March 4th, which was the date when presidents used to be inaugurated before the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. However, and this is what many Americans don't realize, is that there is no federal holiday known as President's Day. The name of the holiday is and always has been since 1879 George Washington's birthday.

So when I said at the top of the episode that President's Day didn't exist, it does not exist as a federal holiday. However, I also said that it sort of exists and it sort of does exist. The next thing you have to know is that federal holidays do not extend to anything beyond federal employees and federal agencies. That's it. Banks, the stock market, and schools are not required to close on any federal holiday as they are not federal agencies. If they choose to do so, they do so as a courtesy, but federal holidays have no jurisdiction over anything other than federal employees. And that includes Christmas, New Year's Day, and everything else. Now, that being said, states can proclaim their own state holidays, and most states overlap their state holidays with federal holidays. But in the case of George Washington's birthday, it gets really weird.

As I mentioned, President's Day sort of does exist at the state level, in some states. The big question is, how do you spell presidents? is it S-apostrophe, which would indicate a day for all presidents? Is it apostrophe S, which would imply the day of a president, like George Washington's birthday? Or is it without an apostrophe, which would make the day consistent with such days as Veterans Day? Well, the answer is, yes. All three versions of the spelling are official holidays in some state. President's Day with S-apostrophe is an official holiday in California, Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.

And this is the most popular variant by far. Presidents Day, apostrophe S, is an official holiday in Alaska, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming. President's Day no apostrophe is a holiday in Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon. In the case without an apostrophe, Presidents is considered to be an attributive noun, which acts as a modifier, and not a plural. If that isn't confusing enough, it does not end there. Maine and South Carolina call it Washington's birthday slash President's Day using apostrophe S. Arizona calls it Lincoln slash Washington slash President's Day,

using S-apostrophe. Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York recognized the federal naming convention of George Washington's birthday. Virginia, Washington's home state, just calls it George Washington Day. Montana, Colorado, Ohio, Utah, and Minnesota celebrate some variation of Washington

and Lincoln's birthday. Alabama calls it George Washington slash Thomas Jefferson birthday, even though Jefferson was born in April. Arkansas calls it George Washington's birthday and Daisy Bates Day, Daisy Bates being a civil rights activist, who was born on November 11th. But wait, there's even more. Massachusetts celebrates Washington's birthday like everyone else, but then they have their own President's Day on May 29th, John F. Kennedy's

birthday, which honors all the presidents who have ties to the state. In New Mexico, President's Day is celebrated the day after Thanksgiving in no November. And in Georgia, they do observe Washington's birthday, but they do so on the day after Christmas. Nine states have no holiday at all for either Washington, Lincoln, or presidents. Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. New Mexico and Georgia clearly just stuck the holiday on days when people weren't going to be going to work anyhow. Arkansas and Alabama just attached other people to the day to reduce the number of holidays. There isn't much in the way of celebrations tied to Washington's birthday or President's Day.

The day is in the middle of the winter, so there aren't many picnics or parades. There are a few communities around the country that commemorate the day, but that's about it. For most people, it's a day off work or a day where your mail doesn't get delivered. There will usually be President's Day sales at various stores because more people than usual will be available to go shopping. The closest thing to an actual tradition surrounding the day is that, Every year since 1862, a member of the United States Senate has been selected to read on the Senate floor the full text of George Washington's farewell address. The selected senator alternates political parties every year, and it's usually broadcast on C-SPAN. Or C-SPAN 2.

Well, more realistically, C-SPAN 3. In 2012, the poll was conducted by Vanity Fair in 60 Minutes, and they found that 35% of Americans would be fine getting rid of the holiday altogether. other. Most wouldn't actually want it officially change to President's Day either because then it would be seen to be honoring bad presidents. That being said, nobody really wants to get rid of a day off of work and no politician would want to be seen disrespecting George Washington or the collective mass of presidents. So the day is probably not going anywhere. As you can see, President's Day or George Washington's birthday or whatever you wish to call it is far more complex and confusing than most people realize.

So to all the presidents out there listening, happy presidents day, except for the fact that the day doesn't really exist, except for where it does exist, even though there's no convention on spelling, naming, or even dates. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon.

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