James Baquet

    Have you ever heard of the strange phenomenon called the “Birthday Paradox?” In probability theory, they say, if you have 23 people together, there’s a 50 percent chance that two of them will share a birthday. With 70 people, the chance is 99.9 percent! (Check it out when you’re in a group of over 20 people.)

    So I guess it’s not so surprising when one famous person shares a birthday with another. But how about the same day and the same year?

    That’s the case with Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, and the famous biologist Charles Darwin. Both were born Feb. 12, 1809.

    When I was a boy, Lincoln’s birthday was celebrated Feb. 12, and that of George Washington, the first president, Feb. 22. We had a day of celebration for each. Throw in the Valentine’s Day celebrations, and February was a pretty great month for a kid!

    Alas for today’s youth, in most states the two presidential birthdays have been rolled into one, known as “Presidents’ Day.”

    But typical of the country’s federal system, things are done differently in different states. One commentator has pointed out that in state designations of the holiday:

    — The name varies state by state

    — Which president/s is/are honored varies state by state

    — The use of the apostrophe varies state by state

    So, four states honor George Washington alone; five states honor both Washington and Lincoln; two honor Washington and one person other than Lincoln; and the apostrophe moves around thus: “Presidents’ Day” (10 states), “President’s Day” (9 states), and “Presidents Day” (4 states). Furthermore, some states combine terms, so one state has “Washington’s Birthday/President’s Day,” and another “Lincoln/Washington/Presidents’ Day.”

    My home state of California (which is one of only four that still recognizes Lincoln’s birthday as a separate holiday — score one for the school kids of the Golden State!) hedges its bet by simply calling the third Monday in February, “The third Monday in February!”

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. a person who makes observations on a topic

    2. include

    3. “like this”

    4. the study that determines how likely something is to happen

    5. a statement that seems to contradict itself

    6. count something as a success

    7. situation

    8. a union of separate states, rather than a single centralized government

    9. combined

    10. protects itself against a wrong choice