A rare alignment

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor F un fact: Presidents Day was originally a celebration of George Washington’s birthday. Later, following the Civil War, we also began celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Fitting, I suppose, since those two are almost always listed one-two whenever someone is compiling a list of greatest U.S. presidents.

Another fun fact: In 1968, to keep it from moving around, Presidents Day was designated as the third Monday in February, which is fine, except that Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and George Washington was born on Feb. 22. The third Monday in February can only fall from Feb. 15 to Feb. 21, meaning the holiday originally created honoring the two men’a birthdays can never actually occur on their birthdays.

I mention all of this because coming up on Monday, Jan. 20, we will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, originally created to honor the birthday and legacy of the famed Civil Rights leader.

Like Presidents Day, MLK Day is designated on a specific place on the calendar, rather than a specific date – the third Monday in January. It’s actually in a pretty goo place as far as the “Monday holidays” go, as it’s a few weeks after Christmas and New Year’s and gives folks a little chance to take a breather after getting back into the regular swing of things.

Monday, Jan. 20, is not, however, the Reverend King’s actual birthday … today is. Dr. King would have been 96 years old today had he not been assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis … and had he not died of some other cause in the 50-plus years since then. Here in 2025, we still honor Dr. King and remember the impact he had on the continuing struggle for equality for others.

But no, today is not MLK Day. That, as I said already, is this coming Monday. And in a rare alignment of the stars, Jan. 20, 2025, is also Inauguration Day here in the United States. Now, that one does have a specific date. It’s the 20th of January every four years, going back to 1933. Before that, it was March 4. Can you imagine another two months of a president who has either lost an election or is term limited being in power? Well, neither could the folks who had it bumped up to January via the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Now, I’m no “mathmechicken” as my son likes to say, so I can’t tell you how often MLK Day (which is every year and moves around the calendar and would only be on the 20th of January every seven or eight years) and Inauguration Day (which is always on Jan. 20 but only occurs every four years and only on a Monday every seven or eight years) but it’s probably a pretty rare occurrence, since I saw somewhere that it has never happened before and won’t happen again until 2053. That’s almost as rare as when Halloween falls on Friday the 13th …

But here we are. And next Monday, not only will we be honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we will also see Donald Trump take the Oath of Office to become the 47th President of the United States. That, in and of itself, is another rare occurrence. Only one other time in our nation’s history has a former U.S. president lost and then regained the White House to have two non-consecutive terms.

For those of you who nodded off in U.S. History class, the other was Grover Cleveland, who won the Election of 1884, lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and staged a political comeback to regain the presidency in 1892. As president, Cleveland was a heavy user of the veto power and was strongly against tariffs. Cleveland was also a Democrat, so basically, the opposite of all the things a second Trump terms seems to offer.

One final fun fact: Although it was Ronald Reagan who signed legislation creating the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, it was President Jimmy Carter who originally proposed the idea, only for Congress to vote it down. I guess the Republican-majority Congress didn’t want to give Carter the win on that issue, but they were glad to do it for their boy Ronnie.

So, in another strange alignment of occurrences, it’s perhaps a little situational irony that as Trump is sworn in, the flags will be at half-staff here in the U.S. as part of the period of mourning following the death of President Carter at age 100, on Dec. 29, 2024.

By all accounts, Carter was probably too nice of a guy to find that funny, but I’m not.