Presidents’ Day is in February to coincide with George Washington’s birthday (the 22nd) and also Abraham Lincoln’s (the 12th).
These days, U.S. presidents have been known to host extravagant parties and military parades to honor their own birthdays, but George and Abe didn’t like celebrating themselves like that.
The executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon says Washington paid little attention to his birthday, and there’s actually no record of him doing anything, outside of acknowledging it in his diary.
Same for Lincoln. He grew out of very humble beginnings, so it’s unlikely that there were any birthday parties as a child. As an adult, he never celebrated his birthday, and instead focused on his work.
That said, there’s one account of Lincoln’s wife, Mary, once making a special almond cake for him, which he called “the best cake I ever ate.”
Here are a few other fun facts about PRESIDENTS’ BIRTHDAYS:
1. Presidents’ Day is always the third Monday in February, meaning that it will range from February 15th to the 21st. It’ll never be on George’s actual birthday on the 22nd or Abe’s on the 12th.
2. George and Abe aren’t the only U.S. presidents who were born in February. William Henry Harrison, who was president briefly in 1841, was born on February 9th, and Ronald Reagan was born on February 6th.
3. Every month has at least one president’s birthday.
October and November are the months with the most (six each), September has the least, with just one. William Taft was born on September 15th.
4. There’s one shared birthday. James K. Polk and Warren G. Harding were both born on November 2nd.
5. The first seven presidents weren’t technically born in America. The first president born after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 was Martin Van Buren. He was born in New York in 1782.
(Time / Wikipedia / Emerging Civil War / Lori Ferber)
