Episode 20 (formerly 1608): US Federal Holidays

[Music] welcome to slow American English the podcast for Learners of American English I'm your host Karen toer this is episode number 16008 US federal holidays America has 10 annual federal holidays also called public holidays national holidays or bank holidays if a holiday is federal it means that non-essential government offices such as the post office are closed and employees are paid for the time off although it isn't required state government offices usually close too many private businesses such as Banks also close but that's up to the individual companies non-government employees don't automatically get paid for the day off if they do it's part of the company's benefits package Congress must approve a proposal for a Federal holiday and the president must sign it into law there have been and still are today many proposals for federal holidays but it is a long process for them to be approved and signed into law most proposals don't become official holidays Congress declared the first federal holidays in 1870 and they applied only to federal workers in the district of Colombia the list consisted of only four holidays New Year's Day Independence Day Thanksgiving Day and Christmas day however the law allowed for more holidays to be added in the future later all government employees in the country were included in the holiday benefit and of course more holidays were added the current federal holidays are as follows New Year's Day January 1st Dr Martin Luther King Jr's birthday third Monday in January Washington's birthday thirdd Monday in February Memorial day last mon Monday in May Independence Day July 4th Labor Day first Monday in September Columbus Day second Monday in October Veterans Day November 11th Thanksgiving Day fourth Thursday in November and Christmas day December 25th in most instances a Federal holiday has a rather long history of being an official observance at state or local levels first let's take Veterans Day for example it was celebrated as Armistice Day by Presidential Proclamation starting in 1919 to honor World War I veterans it expanded to include World War II veterans in 1945 then a US Representative introduced a bill into Congress to make the holiday federal after passing both houses of Congress President Eisenhower signed the bill into law in 1954 notice that three federal holidays occur on a Monday near the actual date of the historic event celebrated this is to ensure a 3-day weekend for federal employees however the holiday is scheduled near near the actual event for example Martin Luther King Jr's birthday is January 15th and the official holiday is the third Monday of that month similarly Washington's actual birthday was February 22nd and Columbus cited land in North America on October 22nd the remaining holidays are celebrated on the dates listed however if if they fall on a Saturday or Sunday when business offices are normally closed the day off occurs on the following Monday another thing you might notice is that the federal holidays are not religious holidays with the exception of Christmas since the USA officially encourages religious freedom there are some that think Christmas should not be a Federal holiday however the nation's found Founders were Christian and Christmas is so entrenched in the culture of the USA that eliminating it from the federal holiday roster is not likely that said other ethnic groups and religions are free to celebrate days with special meaning to them without the government's approval often companies allow members of those groups to take paid days off because of their affiliations examples include Easter for Christians the high holy days for Jews Ramadan for Muslims day of Vesak for Buddhists and Diwali for Hindus there are many other non-federal secular observances as well such as Valentine's Day Earth Day Mother's Day Father's Day Flag Day and Halloween for these there are celebrations and traditions carried out but usually no closed businesses or paid time off that's the podcast for this time slow American English is written and produced by Karen Tolliver copyright 2015 the music for this podcast is written and performed by SW Campbell and used by permission the opening theme song is juny says the ending music is beans and dirty rice find these songs and more music by this artist at www.soundclick.com SLS swc m p b l l please visit www.low American english. net for a free transcript of this podcast there you can also download additional materials for a small fee such materials include regular speed recordings vocabulary exercises comprehension quizzes and discussion topics you can subscribe to slow American English for free via iTunes this has been slow American English I'm Karen Tolliver thank you for listening up day well that cat ain't good for nothing least of all i c m she's chicken of the sea and I right