February 14, 2021
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Today is Monday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2021. There are 319 days left in the year. This is Presidents Day.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Feb. 15, 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.
On this date:
In 1564, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa.
In 1764, the site of present-day St. Louis was established by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau.
In 1798, a feud between two members of the U.S. House of Representatives (meeting in Philadelphia) boiled over as Roger Griswold of Connecticut used a cane to attack Vermont’s Matthew Lyon, who defended himself with a set of tongs. (Griswold was enraged over the House’s refusal to expel Lyon for spitting tobacco juice in his face two weeks earlier; after the two men were separated, a motion to expel them both was defeated.)
Presidents Day 2021: Why Aren t We Celebrating Washington s Birthday On His Actual Birthday?
02/15/21 AT 7:20 AM US President Donald Trump will preside over a night of fireworks on July 3, 2020 the eve of the July 4th holiday at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota Photo: AFP / Kerem Yucel
KEY POINTS
Presidents Day is officially called Washington s Birthday and is celebrated on the third Monday of every February
Washington s Birthday became popularly known as Presidents Day after it was moved as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act
The act required federal holidays to be moved from specific dates to a series of predetermined Mondays