For more information on the the President’s Day Federal Holiday please see our page on Washington’s Birthday.

Washington’s Birthday is the official name designated to what many of us know as President’s Day. During the month of February the birthday of two of our greatest President’s takes place. Both George Washington who was born on Feb. 22nd and Abraham Lincoln born on Feb. 12th.

However, Washington’s birthday has been publicly celebrated since he was in office, before Abraham Lincoln was even born. Much of the debate over the name of the holiday springs from the fact that state’s can follow their own holidays how they see fit and many of them chose to also honor Lincoln, calling the celebration President’s Day.

It was in 1968 that the term President’s Day came up for legal consideration in the Congress but was shot down, though the holiday was moved to fall between the two President’s birthdays. Again in the 1980′s there was a resurgence of the term with advertisers which solidfied the holiday name in American culture. Today, few Americans perfer to call the holiday Washington’s Birthday in lieu of President’s Day.

Educate yourself and others about the presidents of the United States.

Barack Obama

Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States.

His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton’s army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants.

He went on to attend law school, where he became the first African—American president of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.

President Obama’s years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed the first major ethics reform in 25 years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle to pass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world’s most dangerous weapons, and bring transparency to government by putting federal spending online.

He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009. He and his wife, Michelle, are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

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