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Hey, glad to have you on this President's Day facts video for kids, and for adults, and for your dog, your iguana, whatever else might be interested in hearing this, because here's the thing, this is a weird holiday, you're about to learn why.
A lot of people don't realize this, this is a weird holiday.
I mean, let's just be honest, you're going to learn about it, it's okay, you'll impress your friends with the facts, strap in, because honestly, it's just weird, there's no other word for it.
The first thing you are going to learn about President's Day is that it is complicated.
More than you would think.
There are several disagreements over this simple holiday, did you know people don't agree on what to call it, people don't agree how to spell it, and people don't even agree over what it's celebrating, okay, it's really weird, ugh.
Let's start at the beginning, President's Day is an American holiday.
It became a national holiday in 1879, the president then was Rutherford B.
Hayes, and Rutherford B.
Hayes, we can see him here, handsome guy, weird hair, nice guy, great president, President Rutherford B.
Hayes wanted the first day of our first president, George Washington, to be a federal holiday.
George Washington's birthday was February 22nd.
The holiday was often called Washington's birthday instead of President's Day, and was always celebrated on February 22nd.
Here's a picture of a streetcar that was decorated for Washington's birthday.
This is a picture from 1892, a long time ago.
Pretty simple, right?
But then came the disagreements.
In 1968, some people tried to change President's Day to the third Monday of February.
They failed, at least at first.
You see, three years later, it was changed.
President's Day became the third Monday of February, instead of always being on February 22nd, so it wasn't always on Washington's birthday anymore.
Then, it got interesting.
You see, people didn't agree on who to celebrate.
Some people thought, hey, we need to celebrate George Washington.
It's in honor of George Washington's birthday.
It was George Washington's day, so we should just celebrate him, we need to focus on just him.
Then there were other people that said, Abraham Lincoln's birthday is close, too.
We should celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
It's only fair that two of them, right?
It's great.
We should celebrate both of these presidents on President's Day.
And then there were still other people who believed it should celebrate George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and all of the other presidents after all.
It's called the President's Day, and so we should celebrate all of the presidents on Some people believe that.
Some people believe that all three of these are mistaken, and that we should just focus on maybe three presidents or four presidents.
The ideas are endless, and there are multiple states that believe each of these different things, and the government allows each state to decide who they're going to celebrate on President's Day.
And then people didn't agree on what to call it, right?
So, some people believe Washington's birthday, and there are states that call it strictly Washington's birthday, and there are some states and some people who believe it should be called Washington's and Lincoln's birthday, and there are some people in some states that believe it should be called President's Day with the apostrophe between the T and the S.
That type of spelling means that they're celebrating specifically George Washington alone.
And then other states put the apostrophe after the S, as we've done in this video, and call it President's Day and spell it this way.
Ugh.
Okay, so, whatever you call it, whoever you celebrate, there are things almost all of us agree on with this holiday.
Like many stores have huge sales on President's Day, right?
Huge sales on appliances, and on mattresses, and furniture, and all kinds of things, random things, wonderful things, big sales.
And because it's a federal holiday, schools are closed on President's Day.
And like other federal holidays, post offices are closed on President's Day.
See, we can all agree on things with this holiday, right?
But there's another thing that unites us all on this holiday.
Every single state celebrates George Washington.
Some states celebrate Abraham Lincoln, too.
Some states celebrate all the presidents, but every state celebrates George Washington.
It all comes back to him.
We're going to end on these cherries, because there's that legend about George Washington and the cherry tree, and him being honest when he was asked if he chopped it down.
Now, that story is a legend, and the person who made it up admitted that it was just a myth, it was just a legend, but it still is a symbol of George Washington.
And people love eating cherries on President's Day, so if you're able to, grab a couple cherries and remember the first president of the United States.
And if you want to, you can remember the other guys, too.