Washington's Birthday

Washington's Birthday, or Presidents Day, is celebrated in the US on the third Monday in February - mostly!

George Washington was born on 11th February 1732 by the Julian calendar (which is 22nd February in the Gregorian calendar), and later became the first President of the United States of America, serving from 1789 to 1797. Although he was born when the Julian calendar was still in use, after the changeover he recognized the revised Gregorian date of 22nd February as his birthday. Despite this, some people still use 11th February to celebrate his birth, while others use the correct date of 22nd February.

In recent times the US has taken to celebrating most federal holidays on a Monday close to the traditional date, so since 1971, Washington's Birthday has been celebrated on the 3rd Monday in February.

Many schools use the week in which Presidents' Day falls as a mid-winter holiday week and many shops use the long weekend to mark mid-winter sales.

To many, Presidents Day is just another long weekend, but some communities take it more seriously, even to the extent of staging pageants and re-enactments of important milestones in Washington's life.

Celebration of George Washington on this day is universal across the US, but sometimes Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson are celebrated alongside him.

In Arkansas the celebration is called "George Washington's Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day", and in Georgia Washington's birthday is celebrated on 26th December.

If you're looking for a way to commemorate this event, you might be interested in this article: Commemorations with Cross Stitch

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