Hail to the chief

Presidents Day is just around the corner — time to break out the cherry pie and pay tribute to not only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln but also all the other men who have held the highest office in the land. Or is it?

This mid-February holiday has an interesting — if convoluted — history, and what you are officially celebrating may depend on where you live.

Even though most people and most calendars call it Presidents Day, the official federal designation for the third Monday in February is actually Washington's Birthday. Federal holidays, however, affect only federal offices and agencies, and it's up to the states to decide whether to adopt federal holidays for public celebration or not.

According to the Encyclopedia of Days, most states (including Utah) have also officially adopted the holiday as Washington's Birthday, but a handful — including Hawaii, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and South Dakota — do officially designate it Presidents Day. And a few — Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming among them — officially call it Washington-Lincoln Day. Some states also recognize Abraham Lincoln's birthday on Feb. 12 as an official holiday all its own.

But whatever it is called, its roots go back to the earliest days of our country.

George Washington was actually born on Feb. 11, 1731 — at least according to the Julian calendar, which was in common use then. But when Britain and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, making January the start of the year instead of March, the world also jumped ahead 11 days.

That put Washington's birthday on Feb. 22. The first public celebration of the day occurred as early as 1782 — Washington's birthday took the place of birthday celebrations of English sovereigns, which were popular in Colonial times.

By the early 19th century, it had become firmly established as a day of recognition and festivity.

Feb. 22 became an official federal holiday in 1885, when President Chester A. Arthur signed a bill passed by Congress to that effect.

Fast forward more than three-quarters of a century. By the mid-1960s, Congress, which was probably tired of having its work interrupted by floating holidays, saw a way to insert some long weekends and passed the Monday Holidays Act, which fixed the federal holiday for Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Labor Day on specified Mondays. (There was no messing with the Fourth of July or Christmas, for obvious reasons. Thanksgiving was also firmly established as a Thursday holiday.) As part of the act, Washington's birthday would be officially observed on the third Monday in February.