Name three national U.S. holidays.

Why this is the answer

A national holiday, in the sense this question uses, is one created by federal law: Congress passed it and the President signed it, which is why USCIS also calls these federal holidays. There are eleven on the official list, and any three of them answer the question. In the order USCIS lists them, they are New Year's Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day (also called Washington's Birthday), Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. "National" has a narrower legal meaning than it sounds. USCIS's 2008 civics lessons explain that these days are national in a legal sense only for federal institutions and in the District of Columbia. Federal offices usually close, but each state decides whether to observe a given holiday, and businesses and schools choose for themselves. So an employer that stays open on Columbus Day tells you nothing about whether the day belongs on this list. The same lesson notes that since 1971 federal holidays have been observed on Mondays, with six exceptions: New Year's Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The surest answer uses holidays you can explain, because several of them tie into other questions on the test. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, on the third Monday in January, honors the civil rights leader who led the 1963 March on Washington. Presidents Day lands on the third Monday in February because that falls between Lincoln's birthday on February 12 and Washington's on February 22. Juneteenth, June 19, recalls the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, became the last to learn they were free. The trap is familiarity. Valentine's Day, Halloween, Mother's Day and Easter are widely celebrated, yet none of them is on the list, and in a nervous moment one of them can slip out. The other slip is stopping at two. The 2008 test asked for two national holidays; this version asks for three, so have a third ready before you start talking. If you want a set that never shifts on the calendar, take New Year's Day, Independence Day and Christmas Day: January 1, July 4 and December 25 every single year.