Happy (week early) Washington’s Birthday

Ask most people what holiday today is, and you’ll likely get the standard response: Presidents Day. After all, most calendars do list the third Monday in February as such.

Surprisingly, though, Presidents Day is technically not the name of this holiday, according to 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code.

At the federal level, today is officially designated as Washington’s Birthday, even though George Washington’s birthday is actually on Feb. 22 (and even though the third Monday only ever falls between  Feb. 15 and Feb. 21).

Even more strangely, the State of Indiana doesn’t designate today as a holiday at all. Nor does it list Abraham Lincoln’s (Feb. 12) or Washington’s birthdays as holidays.

Instead, Indiana officially celebrates Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays on the day after Thanksgiving and a day shortly before Christmas, respectively. Presumably, this is because state government wanted to give workers those days off without increasing the total number of holidays, and chose to move the names of the two presidents’
birthdays to the holiday season to accomplish this.

Why, then, does almost everyone call today Presidents Day?

Most observers of mid-20th-century history cite the numerous debates over how and when to celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays, which often included proposals for calling such a holiday Presidents Day, as the reason for this phenomenon.

Happy (week early) Washington’s Birthday.

— Jarrod Lowery, IDS Opinion editor