Happy Presidents Day! The holiday—officially called Washington’s Birthday and established by Congress in 1971 as the third Monday in February—is meant to honor United States presidents. Eight of the forty-four, or 18 percent, were born in Virginia:
- George Washington
- Thomas Jefferson
- James Madison
- James Monroe
- William Henry Harrison
- John Tyler
- Zachary Taylor
- Woodrow Wilson
There are other kinds of presidents in the encyclopedia, however—for instance, Confederate States presidents. And on this day in 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Alabama. He declared that the “South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.”
IMAGE: Folk art depiction of George and Martha Washington (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
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