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President George Washington’s Birthday 2017
Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington, our first president.
Supposedly.
Did you know that Washington was actually, technically, born on February 11, 1731, not February 22, 1732? How could it be that he has two dates of birth? (Something he has in common with a former president we know only too well.)
According to Wikipedia:
George Washington was the first child of Augustine Washington (1694–1743) and his second wife Mary Ball Washington (1708–1789), born on their Pope’s Creek Estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was born on February 11, 1731, according to the Julian calendar and Annunciation Style of enumerating years then in use in the British Empire. The Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22, 1732.
How many of you who are into genealogy ever considered which calendar was in use at the time, if any of your own ancestors were born in the British Empire before 1752?
No wonder it’s so common to run across an ancestor who didn’t seem to know his own date of birth!
In any case, February 22 is the date that We the People of the United States of America accept as George Washington’s birthday. So,
Happy Birthday to our first president,
George Washington!
We owe you more than you can ever know. God bless and keep you.
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Source: https://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/president-george-washingtons-birthday-2017/
