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Which American most deserves their own national holiday?

By YPB Team

The calendar already honours one or two of these people. The rest are still waiting on a bill that never came.

  1. Abraham Lincoln — ranked #11
    Abraham Lincoln
    Several states mark his 12 February birthday; the federal calendar never has.
    1000pts
  2. Harriet Tubman — ranked #22
    Harriet Tubman
    Escaped slavery, then went back nineteen times to lead others out.
    1000pts
  3. Amelia Earhart — ranked #33
    Amelia Earhart
    First woman to fly the Atlantic alone, and aviation's most enduring open question.
    709pts
  4. Booker T. Washington — ranked #44
    Booker T. Washington
    Born enslaved, founded Tuskegee and built it into a national institution.
    709pts
  5. Nikola Tesla — ranked #55
    Nikola Tesla
    The naturalised American whose alternating current lit the country.
    709pts
  6. Benjamin Franklin — ranked #66
    Benjamin Franklin
    Printer, diplomat and inventor who signed every founding document that mattered.
    600pts
  7. Rosa Parks — ranked #77
    Rosa Parks
    Her refusal to move seats in Montgomery in 1955 started a 381-day bus boycott.
    600pts
  8. Eleanor Roosevelt — ranked #88
    Eleanor Roosevelt
    Redefined the role of First Lady, then drove the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
    600pts
  9. Thomas Edison — ranked #99
    Thomas Edison
    1,093 US patents, and the laboratory model that made invention an industry.
    600pts
  10. Frederick Douglass — ranked #1010
    Frederick Douglass
    The escaped slave who became the most photographed American of the 19th century.
    466pts
  11. Jonas Salk — ranked #1111
    Jonas Salk
    Developed the polio vaccine and refused to patent it.
    466pts
  12. Jackie Robinson — ranked #1212
    Jackie Robinson
    Broke baseball's colour line in 1947 under instructions not to answer back.
    466pts
  13. George Washington — ranked #1313
    George Washington
    Already has one on paper — the February federal holiday is legally Washington's Birthday.
    0pts
  14. Susan B. Anthony — ranked #1414
    Susan B. Anthony
    Spent fifty years campaigning for a vote she died fourteen years too early to cast.
    0pts
  15. Neil Armstrong — ranked #1515
    Neil Armstrong
    The first person to stand on the Moon, and the least interested in saying so.
    0pts
  16. Mark Twain — ranked #1616
    Mark Twain
    The writer who gave American English its own literary voice.
    0pts

Comments 1

Harriet Tubman went back nineteen times to bring other people out, and she is on a list where only one name already owns a federal Monday: https://youpick.best/articles/washington-vs-lincoln-ranked

YP
ypb-team
Aug 21