Washington, Lincoln, and Nixon

Quick: name the holiday we are celebrating today in the United States, February 20th.

If you said "Presidents' Day," you are wrong, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. Since 1971, the third Monday in February has been observed as a federal holiday to observe George Washington's birthday.

From Wikipedia:

"A draft of that bill called for a Presidents' Day to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but the final version only moved Washington's Birthday from the 22nd to the third Monday without changing its name.

"As of 2006, the federal government and many state and local governments still officially designate the holiday as 'Washington's Birthday.' Yet most private employers and calendar makers refer to it as 'Presidents' Day.' "

And from snopes.com:

President Nixon is frequently identified as the party responsible for changing Washington's Birthday into President's Day and fostering the notion that it is a day for commemorating all U.S. Presidents, a feat he supposedly achieved by issuing a proclamation on 21 February 1971 which declared the third Monday in February to be a "holiday set aside to honor all presidents, even myself." Evidence of this proclamation remains elusive, however. Presidential records indicate that Nixon merely issued an Executive Order (11582) on 11 February 1971 defining the third Monday of February as a holiday, and the announcement of that Executive Order identified the day as "Washington's Birthday."

The misunderstanding resulted in this recent correction in the Los Angeles Times:

Federal holiday — An article in Section A on Jan. 16 about efforts to keep the Martin Luther King Day holiday from becoming commercialized said it was the only holiday named for an individual, that "even George Washington has to share Presidents Day." Although Presidents Day has become the popular reference to a day that combines Washington's and Lincoln's birthday commemorations, legally the federal holiday is called George Washington's Birthday. Columbus Day is also a federal holiday.

Happy Washington's/Lincoln's Birthday to all!