Monday is Presidents Day, which honors the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by giving many people a day off from work and inducing businesses to offer special deals in order to move product. If I sound a little jaded, I’m sorry but I really HATE some of the ads which have actors dressed as George and Abe dancing around to sell cars or washers or whatever. Are we, the shopping public, so blasé about sales that companies need to make monkeys out of our national figures so we pay attention? I’m just asking…
Washington was born on February 11, 1732, but his birthdate changed to February 22 in 1752 when England changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. We have enough trouble remembering to add an extra day to February every four years – can you imagine what it was like to have the entire calendar system change?? At least George became 11 days younger instead of 11 days older (of course at age 20, he probably didn’t much care about that!)
Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar in 46 BC. It allowed for February’s leap day every four years, but other calculations were wrong so it gained three days about every four centuries. Pope Gregory the 13th signed a paper in 1582 that adopted changes to the Julian calendar that corrected the errors. Rather than call it the “Julian Calendar Part 2,” they just named the new calendar after the Pope. Throughout the following centuries, countries gradually adopted the Gregorian calendar. However, there are still some religions and a few countries that follow the Julian version even today. I wonder how a cellphone’s electronic updating function handles that when its owner visits a country that follows a completely different calendar?
Speaking of calendars, have you bookmarked the Squadron’s Event Calendar page yet? We post all events on it throughout the year. Find it here and check it often as we’re busily booking appearances for the Mustang and RISE ABOVE Traveling Exhibit for the coming months. We hope you’ll visit us when we’re in or near your hometown.
In Other News…
Filmmaker George Lucas will receive the NAACP’s Vanguard Award tonight in a ceremony that will be aired on NBC (check local listings). He’s receiving it in part for producing the movie “Red Tails” about the Tuskegee Airmen. Click here for a brief article about it.
The CAF Red Tail Squadron is a volunteer-driven 501c3 non-profit organization that operates under the auspices of the Commemorative Air Force. For more information, please visit redtail.org.
