2/16/26 - President's Day, Anti-Valentines, and 911

Monday 2/16/26

Celebrate:

Do a Grouch a Favor Day

International Syrah Day

Koyoto Protocol Day

National Almond Day

National Innovation Day

1937 - DuPont patented Nylon. A popular urban legend says "Nylon" stands for "New York London," but DuPont actually claimed the name was random. They almost called it "No-Run," but they realized that was a lie because the stockings could still "run" or snag, so they changed the vowels until it sounded catchy.

Shrove Monday is part of the Shrovetide celebrations that encompass the week before Lent. It takes place on the Monday before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. In between these two days is Shrove Tuesday. "Shrove" is the past tense of "shrive," which means to obtain absolution from sin. Shriving can be done through confession and penance.

We celebrate these two and most of the others.

Presidents' Day - officially known as Washington's Birthday, and is a holiday to honor the first president, George Washington, who was born on February 22, 1732.

There is technically no federal holiday called "Presidents' Day"—the federal government still officially calls today "Washington's Birthday."

In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect. It made it so that some holidays, including Washington's Birthday, would be held on Mondays—Washington's Birthday began being held on the third Monday of February, which falls between February 15 and 21, but never on his actual birthday. There had been a provision in the bill to combine Washington and Lincoln's (February 12th) birthdays together for the holiday, but this was eventually dropped. Nonetheless, the day soon became known informally as Presidents' Day, and some believed the new date was chosen to honor both presidents, although that was not the law's intent. By the late-1980s, advertisers began calling it as such, and began pushing for a formal name change. Businesses originally had mainly been closed on the day, but began staying open, and started holding sales.

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Google searches for "I hate Valentine's Day" have exploded by over 5,000% in the past month, and businesses are capitalizing on the jaded-lover market. From naming exes after piles of animal feces to smashing staged date nights in rage rooms, anti-Valentine's events are becoming big business. Participating in these cathartic campaigns serves as "a small act of self-affirmation," according to psychology experts, even for people who aren't currently heartbroken.

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Today in 1923, archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed doorway to the burial chamber of King Tutankhamun.

When Carter first peeked through a small hole into the antechamber, his patron Lord Carnarvon asked if he could see anything. Carter famously replied, "Yes, wonderful things."

A few months later, Lord Carnarvon died from an infected mosquito bite. The "Curse of the Pharaohs" became a global media sensation, but Carter himself lived another 16 years, proving that the curse was either very selective or just a great way to sell newspapers.

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Weekend Box Office

1. Wuthering Heights $34.8M

2. GOAT $26.0M

3. Crime 101 $15.1M

4. Send Help $9.0M

5. Solo Mio $6.8M

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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - 1968, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Alabama.

The first call was placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite to U.S. Representative Tom Bevill. Bevill answered the phone at the local police station with a simple "Hello."

Why 9-1-1? AT&T chose the numbers because they were short, easy to remember, and had never been used as an area code or office code, making it technically easy to implement in the existing phone grid.

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