EMANCIPATION DAY

A bit of education today.  Maybe you were wondering why taxes were not due on April 16th this year like I was.  Here's why:

What is Emancipation Day?  According to Wikipedia, Emancipation Day is a holiday in Washington DC to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Compensated Emancipation Act, which president Abraham Lincoln signed on April 16, 1862.  April 16th is a legal holiday in Washington, DC. The observance of Emancipation Day is the reason the deadline for taxes is extended to April 17th in 2018.

According to Wikipedia:

Formal slavery was legal until 1865 in most of the area that is now the United States. Many slaves were of African origin and many slave owners were of European descent, although some other groups also had slaves. By 1860, there were about four million slaves in the United States. On April 16, 1862, Abraham Lincoln, who was the US president at the time, signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed more than 3000 slaves in the District of Columbia. However, slavery did not officially end in the rest of the United States until after the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 until 1865.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution formally ended slavery in the US. It was proposed on January 31, 1865, and ratified by 30 of the then 36 states in the same year. However, it was only ratified in Mississippi in 1995. Slavery and the racial divisions, upon which it was based, have had and continue to have huge implications for individuals and American society as a whole.

There is the answer to why taxes are not due on April 16th this year.  There is a local holiday in Washington, DC.

Until tomorrow...