Lincoln's Birthday 2025: When is Lincoln's Birthday 2025 & 2026?

Below you can find dates of Lincoln's Birthday 2025 and Lincoln's Birthday 2026. In the table you can check how many days you have been on holiday, which week is the holiday and which day of the month.

Lincoln’s Birthday

Lincoln’s Birthday also known as Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday, Abraham Lincoln Day or Lincoln Day is a holiday celebrates in the United States the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, who was the 16th President of the United States and one of the most popular and greatest figures in the United States history. He protected the Union during the US Civil War and ensured the liberation of slaves.

Although it is not a federal holiday, February 12^th is celebrated at many places around the United States associated with him. Lincoln's Birthday is a public holiday in some areas in the United States such as California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York where it is a day off and schools and most businesses are closed. In other states of the United States, Lincoln's Birthday, on February 12 is a normal working day because Lincoln's birthday is celebrated every year on the third Monday of February with President George Washington's birthday. The United federal holiday is officially called Washington's Birthday, but it's also known as Presidents Day.

 

Lincoln’s Birthday Background

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on February 12 in 1809. He lived in Indiana before moving to Illinois. His father was Thomas Lincoln, an illiterate pioneer farmer, and his mother was Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who died when Abraham was nine years old. She died of poisoned milk and his father soon married another woman, a widow, Sarah Bush Johnston. She had a good relationship with Abraham and he also loved her company. Abraham Lincoln worked on a farm and in a store as well as he was a captain in the Black Hawk War, and worked as a lawyer. He married Mary Todd in 1842 who was the first lady of USA between 1861 and 1865 and they had four boys together named Robert Todd Lincoln, Tad Lincoln, William Wallace Lincoln, Edward Baker Lincoln.

 

Lincoln’s political career began at the age of 23 in 1832 when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Illinois General Assembly, as a Whig Party member. He then joined the Republican Party in 1854. By joining this newly formed party, he was nationally recognized during the 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas despite Douglas’ win in the race for US Senator. Lincoln won the presidency elections in 1860 and, despite being a Republican, rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union case during the Civil War.

 

Abraham Lincoln was the president of the United States throughout the American Civil War and is known for his struggle to preserve the Union and the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. He was known as the Great Emancipator, the Rail Splitter and Honest Abe. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth who somehow thought he was helping the South at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC on Good Friday. This unfortunate event occurred less than two weeks after the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox Court House in 1865.

 

Lincoln’s Birthday was first celebrated as a holiday in 1866, one year after his death. Many states have a joint holiday to honor two important figures of the United States Lincoln and George Washington, therefore this holiday is sometimes called as Presidents’ Day. In the mid-1870s, Julius Francis of Buffalo, New York, began honoring Lincoln on his birthday and petitioned Congress to make the day a federal holiday of the United States.

 

Lincoln’s Birthday Celebrations

• Each year on the 12^th of February, wreath-laying ceremony is organized at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Kentucky to celebrate Lincoln’s Birthday.
• The Rhode Island Town of Lincoln in the United States was named in honor of Abraham Lincoln in 1871. People who want to celebrate his birthday on 12^th of February each year, may visit Arnold House and learn about President Lincoln's visits to the Ocean State and the history of this land that became Lincoln. They may also tour the museum and enjoy some birthday cake.
• Even where there is no legal holiday, many groups and people celebrate Lincoln's birthday. Annual wreath ceremonies take place at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Kentucky. The ceremony in Washington has been held every year since the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922. Other Lincoln's Birthday celebration activities in other places include parades, concerts, and reading of Gettysburg Address which is a powerful and well-known speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863. The whole speech was only a few minutes long, but is considered one of the great speeches in the United States history.

 

Lincoln’s Birthday Customs and Traditions

• Lincoln's Birthday is also celebrated in schools. Events that honor, commemorate and express gratitude to Abraham Lincoln are organized specifically for this special day. Teachers can reach Lincoln-related primary source sets and lesson plans for organizing a remembrance lesson on his birthday through The Library of Congress's Teachers site.
• The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, celebrated the president's 200th birthday at the Lincoln memorial with performances by Michael Feinstein and the U.S. marine corps band. Senator Dick Durbin, Lincoln scholar and ALBC Co-Chair Harold Holzer, ALBC Commissioner Frank J. Williams and author Nikki Giovanni who wrote a work specifically for the bicentennial gave speeches about Lincoln and importance of Lincoln’s Birthday. Four commemorative pennies were minted in celebration of his 200^th birthday in 2009.

 

Lincoln’s Birthday Facts

• President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth while at Ford's Theatre on April 14, which is Good Friday. He died early in the morning next day at a boarding house across from the Ford's Theatre. Lincoln’s Birthday celebrates not only his birthday but also remembers his remarkable life and his contributions to the United States at such a difficult time in its history.
• Lincoln's Birthday holiday was initially only applied to the Columbia District, but in 1885 it was extended to the entire country. At that time, Washington's Birthday took part in four other nationally recognized federal bank holidays (Christmas Day, New Year's Day, July 4th, and Thanksgiving) and it was the first federal holiday to celebrate the life of an individual American. The second one was Martin Luther King Jr., signed by law in 1983.
• Abraham Lincoln is a very well-known figure for his very characteristic and recognizable appearance. Photos and stories about Lincoln tell us that he was an extremely tall man with a thin body.
• Although historical records say that Abraham Lincoln's father was only 5 feet by 10 inches, his height reached a staggering height of 6 feet 5 inches, which was extremely high in the 1800s, but still considered very high today. Lincoln shrank to about 6 feet 4 inches, which is typical of all people like at the time of his death.
• On January 1, 1863, Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation and reshaped the cause of the Civil War from the liberation of the Union to the abolition of slavery. The first year of the Union Army and half of the battlefield defeats made it difficult to maintain morale and provided strong support for the reunification of the nation.
• During the American Civil War, his leadership in the North helped the country stay strong and defeat the South to keep the country together.
• Abraham Lincoln had little formal education, but a strong interest in books and learning. Most of what he learned was from books he borrowed and read.
• Following Lincoln's assassination, the War Department retained his silk stovepipe hat when he wore the night he was assassinated and other materials he had left at the Ford Theater. Courtesy of Mary Lincoln, the department handed the hat to the Patent Office in 1867, handing it over to the Smithsonian Institution.
• Lincoln often stored things like letters and documents in his tall top hat. In a famous story, he hid the papers in the crowns of his hats, humbly removed them while talking to the electorate, and threw them before the generals to emphasize his anger.
• Abraham Lincoln set up a national banking system in the United States while he was president. He also firstly established the Department of Agriculture.
• He was also known as a talented storyteller and he liked to tell jokes.
• According to the records, on the day he was assassinated, Lincoln told his bodyguard that he had dreamt he would be assassinated.

Lincoln’s Birthday Symbols

There are many museums and monuments are dedicated to Abraham Lincoln. Various artworks including paintings, drawings, statues and photographs, and also lots of books have been created for him and preserved carefully to honor him.  Some of the examples of those are:

• Lincoln’s portrait on the American five-dollar bill.
• Lincoln’s likeness on Mount Rushmore
• The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.
• Lincoln statue at Gettysburg Museum
• Lincoln's silk top hat is exhibited in the Smithsonian Museum

 

Check out the Lincoln's Birthday in the following years.

• 2024 Holidays
• 2025 Holidays
• 2026 Holidays
• 2027 Holidays