Black History Month is celebrated every February, the shortest and one of the coldest months of the year. At first glance it may not seem like a very festive choice, but there’s a significance to the time of year Black History Month is celebrated. 

According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Black History Month started in 1926 as Negro History Week. The celebratory week was set in February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln. 

Douglass, whose birthday is Feb. 14, was an escaped slave and influential abolitionist. His 1845 autobiography is still taught in U.S. schools today. Lincoln, born Feb. 12, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people free in the Confederate states. 

“There was no sinister reason for February’s selection,” said Burnis R. Morris, a journalism and communications professor at Marshall University, in a post to the ASALH website.

The creation of Negro History Week was spearheaded Carter G. Woodson, who founded the ASALH (then called the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History). Woodson wanted to draw attention to the accomplishments and legacies of Black Americans, which were misrepresented in (or left out entirely of) the history books of the time.

At some point in the 1940s, Negro History Week expanded to Negro History Month, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. The name started changing to Black History Month in the 1960s. 

Then in 1976, President Gerald Ford recognized the celebratory month. He urged Americans to “recognize the important contribution made to our nation’s life and culture by Black citizens.”

Ten years later Congress passed a law officially naming February as National Black History Month.

Canada also celebrates Black History Month in February, according to the ASALH. The U.K., meanwhile, recognizes it in October.