Why is Today Presidents' Day?
According to History.com, Presidents' Day was originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington. The holiday became popularly known as Presidents' Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other figures, Presidents' Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents, past and present.
The story of Presidents' Day begins in 1800. Following the death of George Washington in 1799, his February 22 birthday became a perennial day of remembrance. At the time, Washington was venerated as the most important figure in American history, and events like the 1832 centennial of his birth and the start of construction of the Washington Monument in 1848 were cause for national celebration.
While Washington’s Birthday was an unofficial observance for most of the 1800s, it was not until the late 1870s that it became a federal holiday. Senator Stephen Wallace Dorsey of Arkansas was the first to propose the measure, and in 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes signed it into law.
The holiday initially only applied to the District of Columbia, but in 1885 it was expanded to the whole country. At the time, Washington’s Birthday joined four other nationally recognized federal bank holidays, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, and was the first to celebrate the life of an individual American. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, signed into law in 1983, was the second.
Pop Quiz - Requirements to be President of the United States. There are only three, can you name them?
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Must be 35-years-old or older (when this law was made, the average life expectancy was 40.)
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Must have resided in the United States for at least the previous 14 years.
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Must be a natural-born citizen. (The first U.S. President to actually fulfill this was Martin Van Buren, the 8th president of the United States.)
Happy Presidents' Day!!
