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abraham lincoln birthday.


Abraham Lincoln was born 201 years ago today.

Happy Birthday, Abe!

Although the 2010 Winter Olympics begin today, lets not let it overshadow the day meant to remember the birth of a great American President, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 and grew up to become 16th President of the United States. He led this country through the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. He was assassinated in April of 1965.

Lincoln's Birthday is a legal holiday in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Indiana. It is celebrated on his birthday, or on a Monday closest to his February 12th birthday. Many other states that had formerly observed Lincoln's birthday have created a joint holiday to honor both Lincoln and George Washington, calling it "Presidents Day". It coincides with the Federal holiday officially designated "Washington's Birthday", observed on the third Monday of February. This year President's Day is February 15th

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

--Abraham Lincoln