Presidents' Day

Presidents’ Day is the United States’ mid-winter federal holiday honoring the office of the presidency — and, first of all, George Washington. Though the calendar and the store advertisements call it Presidents’ Day, its legal name at the federal level has never changed: it is Washington’s Birthday, observed on the third Monday of February.

Washington’s Birthday, by another name

Washington’s birthday was celebrated across the country long before it was a federal holiday. Congress first made it one in 1879, and by 1885 the observance applied to all federal offices, fixed to his birthday of February 22. In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which — to give federal workers dependable three-day weekends — moved several holidays to Mondays. When the law took effect in 1971, Washington’s Birthday shifted to the third Monday in February. A proposal circulating at the time would have renamed the day “Presidents’ Day” to also honor Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday falls on February 12, but Congress rejected the change. The nickname stuck anyway, spread by advertisers and state governments, even though federal law still says Washington’s Birthday.

How we get this date. The holiday is calculated as the third Monday of February — not a fixed calendar date. Counting from the first of the month, we take the third Monday, which always lands somewhere between February 15 and February 21. That is why the date moves within that week each year, and why, despite honoring Washington, it can never fall on his actual birthday of February 22.

Two calendars, one birthday

Washington’s own birth date carries a historical wrinkle. He was born on February 11, 1731 under the Julian calendar that Britain and its colonies used at the time. When Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, eleven days were dropped and the start of the year moved, and his birthday was restated as February 22, 1732 — the date remembered today. In modern practice the holiday is widely treated as a tribute to all who have held the office, marked by ceremonies, readings of Washington’s Farewell Address, school lessons, and some of the biggest retail sales of the year.