3rd Monday in February

And does California just refer to the day as the Third Monday in February?

Well, as they say, it’s complicated. And it has to do with an act of Congress in 1968 and advertising. So when someone says Presidents Day is just about selling cars and mattresses, they are actually kind of right.

So let’s get to it.

But before we do, let’s pause for a moment to wonder if George Washington had a British accent, since he was a British subject.

Right? Anyway, there was a thing called the Julian calendar. George Washington, the “General,” Numero Uno, the Man from Mount Vernon, the “OG” Founding Father, was born, in fact, in Virginia on Feb. 11, 1731, according to the Julian calendar, which was used by Britain and all of its colonies until 1752, even though many Catholic nations had ditched it in 1582. The Julian calendar was adopted by the well-known dictator and/or emperor Julius Caesar (who did not invent the eponymous salad, credit for that goes to an Italian national, Cesare Cardini, who on July 4, 1925, at his restaurant Caesar’s in Tijuana, Mexico, gave us the first Caesar salad). Caesar wanted to update the Roman Republic Calendar, which had 10 months, but then also 12 months … it was weird, and just not up to Caesar’s standards. And Caesar (who was not born by cesarean section, by the way, it’s just that cesarean was derived from the Latin word for “cut”) wanted it to be 365 days with a leap year. However, it said the year was 365.25 days, which didn’t coincide with the true lunar calendar, which had it at 365.24 days, or off by 11 minutes and 14 seconds. Those seconds accumulated, and ticked off Pope Gregory XIII, who decided a new calendar was in order, and that’s the Gregorian calendar we follow today.

Anyway, that took a while, and George Washington’s birthday was moved a whole year and 11 days to Feb. 22, 1732.

In 1879, it took an act of Congress to create a federal holiday honoring Washington, but just in the nation’s capital, named after, well, you know who. Soon the idea of a day off to sleep in, er, honor the first president, spread to all federal offices in 1885.

Eventually, through another act of Congress (when Congress apparently did things) in 1968, though enacted in 1971, Washington’s birthday was moved to the third Monday in February, anywhere between Feb. 15 and 21, so not actually his birthday. In the meantime, you may remember our 16th president Abraham Lincoln, who was born this week, Feb. 12 to be exact, 216 years ago, in 1809, in Kentucky. Because Washington’s birthday was celebrated on this new holiday, people lumped Lincoln into the holiday that was beginning to be known as Presidents Day. So the thinking was that we were celebrating the two on one day, when really it was businesses looking to clear their merchandise before tax day through blowout sales, now called sales “events.” And Lincoln’s birthday has never been a national holiday, though I notice courts are closed, which tells me their workers have a good union. Presidents Day sales really took off in the 1980s.

And not every state refers to the day as Presidents Day. It’s George Washington Day in Virginia, but Lincoln’s and Washington’s Birthday in Montana. Arkansas calls it George Washington’s Birthday and Daisy Bates Day. Delaware does not observe the Washington’s Birthday federal holiday at all (it was also sadly one of the last states to abolish slavery, look it up). The real kicker, at least for me, is that California doesn’t officially call the day anything. Though Feb. 12 is known as Lincoln Day and March 31 is known as Cesar Chavez Day, in between the only holiday is known simply as “The Third Monday in February,” according to government code, title 1, chapter 7, section 6700. By George!

The Associated Press calls it Presidents Day (no apostrophe), in line with its entries on descriptive phrases like citizens band radio (a radio band for citizens) or teachers college (a college for teacher). This differs from Merriam-Webster, which might be interesting only to me. But that means, by this use, that since the name Presidents Day is not officially adopted by the federal government, it is, colloquially, a day for presidents, but mainly our first one.

Celebrate that however you like. I’m going to have a slice of cherry pie and read more about Daisy Bates.