President's Day history

Hi neighbors. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and Monday is President's Day. A good gift for tomorrow would be a credit card to be used on Monday.

President's Day was implemented in 1879 by an act of Congress for Washington government offices as a federal holiday. In 1885 all federal offices were included to celebrate. In 1971 it was determined to be celebrated each year on the third Monday of February; but was still titled Washington's birthday.

In 1951 a national committee attempted to name the holiday President's Day, to not just honor Washington's Birthday, but to honor the office of the presidency, not a particular president. But it wasn't until the 1980s that the name "President's Day" appeared in public.

Still, most people associate the day with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as both of their birthdays are in the month of February. They still remain the most celebrated presidents.

If you are a trivia fan, here are some lesser-known facts about these two men. We'll start with George Washington. He started school at age 6, but left at 15 because his mother could not afford to send him on to college.

At 26, he married Martha Dandridge Custis, a widow who had two children of her own, Jackie and Patsy. Washington never had children of his own.

A big man, Washington was 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 200 pounds. Maybe because his favorite dishes were cream of peanut soup, mashed sweet potatoes with coconut and string beans with mushrooms.

He loved his 30 odd dogs and is known as the father of the American Foxhound breed. He gave his dogs odd names including Tarter, True Love, Sweet Lips, Drunkard, Tipler, and Tipsy.

He had lots of trouble with his teeth and at age 57 he had all his teeth extracted. He had a set of false teeth made of ivory and set in a silver plate. He never had a set of wooden dentures.

He helped plan Washington, D.C. But never lived in that city. He lived in New York City and later in Philadelphia, which were the nation's capitals while he was president.

Like many heroes, Washington had some seemingly miraculous escapes. In the Braddock battle of 1755, his troops were caught in the crossfire between British and Native American soldiers. Two horses were shot down under Washington and his coat was pierced by four musket balls. His body was never hit by any of the musket balls.

According to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, "On September 19, 1794, George Washington became the only sitting U.S. president to personally lead troops in the field when he led the militia on a nearly month-long march west over the Allegheny Mountains to the town of Bedford."

But enough about George Washington, let's hear about Abe Lincoln.

Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, used his long limbs to become an accomplished wrestler as a young man and lost only one out of 300 matches. According to Carl Sandburg's biography of Lincoln, he once challenged an entire crowd of onlookers after dispatching an opponent: "I'm the big buck of this lick. If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns." There were no takers. Lincoln's grappling exploits earned him an "Outstanding American" honor in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Although he signed legislation creating the U.S. Secret Service on April 14, 1865, the day he died the Secret Service would not have saved his life. The original mission of the Secret Service was to stop currency counterfeiting. It was only after two other presidents were assassinated that the Secret Service was formally assigned to protect the president in 1901.

The Secret Service did protect Lincoln after his death. In 1876 a gang of Chicago counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln's body from a poorly protected tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Ill., to hold it for a $200,000 ransom and to get the gang's best counterfeiter from prison. Secret Service agents infiltrated the gang and stopped the grave robbery. Lincoln's body was moved to an unmarked grave, placed in a steel cage and entombed under 10 feet of concrete.

Lincoln was born in a Kentucky log cabin in 1809 and went with his father in 1816 to a 160-acre farm in Indiana. Lincoln did not move to Illinois until 1830.

When Lincoln was 9 years old in 1818 his mother, Nancy, died of a milk sickness that was rampant in southern Indiana that year. It was later discovered that the sickness was due to drinking milk from cows that had eaten poisonous white snakeroot.

Until the next time friends remember that the real heroes are men and women like ourselves who strove and survived to become well known for their accomplishments.