Happy President’s Day & Washington’s Birthday

After his death in 1799, people started observing George Washington’s birthday on February 22. It became a federal holiday in 1879 and is now observed annually on the third Monday of February, along with Abe Lincoln’s birthday.

This was actually the first U.S. holiday that celebrated the life of an individual American. Mr. Washington was known as “The Father of Our Country’, for chopping down a cherry tree when he was six years old (a myth and long-running legend), for throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River (it was actually a piece of slate he tossed across the Rappahannock River), and for having wooden dentures.