You may have seen advertisements already for the Presidents Day sale at your local car dealer or furniture store. It says Presidents Day on your calendar- right there on February 17th (although it might say President's Day or Presidents' Day). The truth is that there's no such federal holiday. We learned in grade school that George Washington was born on February 22nd and Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12th, and we marked both birthdays in class. But Washington's Birthday has been a federal holiday since 1879. It was moved from February 22nd to the third Monday in February in 1970, and people started calling it Presidents Day under the assumption that it was a combined holiday for Washington and Lincoln. But Lincoln's birthday was never a federal holiday, and what we call Presidents Day is still officially named Washington's Birthday by the federal government.
However, quite a few states recognize the holiday as Presidents Day, and celebrate George Washington, or Washington and Lincoln, or any combination of US presidents they please. The same with local governments, calendar makers, and stores. Read more about the confusion over Presidents Day (and its punctuation) at Mental Floss.
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The 'shopkeeper' in the article who tried to get a federal holiday for Lincoln was from Buffalo, NY, which had long observed both Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays as holidays. As did several states. When Congress made the change, we all lost a day off from school - Boo! It was presented to us younglings as combining both birthdays into one. The confusion won't go away until we all die off.
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