WASHINGTON, DC: Emancipation Day

Why did we get an extra two days to file our taxes? Because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a Washington, D.C., holiday that commemorates President Lincoln's April 16, 1862, signing of the Compensated Emancipation Act. The act freed some 3,100 slaves in D.C. nine months before the better-known Emancipation Proclamation. Emancipation Day has been a D.C. holiday since 2005, and the federal government also observes it.