Topic: Founders and National Leaders
How does Brazil mark Founders and National Leaders?
Tiradentes
- Local date
- April 21, 2027
21 April commemorates Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes ("tooth-puller", after his trade), hanged and quartered in Rio de Janeiro on that date in 1792 for his part in the Inconfidência Mineira against the Portuguese crown. The striking part is that the statute in force does not contain his name: Article 1 of Law 662 of 1949, as amended by Law 10.607 of 2002, lists the national holidays as bare dates, and 21 April is simply one of them. The name lives elsewhere. The provisional republican government's Decree 155-B of 14 January 1890 declared 21 April "consecrated to the commemoration of the precursors of Brazilian independence, summed up in Tiradentes". Law 4.897 of 9 December 1965 then declared Joaquim José da Silva Xavier civic patron of the Brazilian Nation and described 21 April as the date commemorating his execution. Administratively the name reappears in the foreign ministry's published calendar, where 21 April 2026 is listed as "Tiradentes (national holiday)".
What is this topic?
In federal law the third Monday in February is still called Washington's Birthday.
It is written that way in 5 U.S.C. §6103(a), the section that lists all eleven legal public holidays, and the Office of Personnel Management footnotes every annual holiday table to say that although states and businesses may use other names, its policy is to use the name in the statute.
"Presidents' Day" is a state and retail habit that federal law never adopted.
Taiwan went the other way and gave one man two dates: Article 3 of its Commemorative Days and Holidays Act lists both the birthday of the founding father (12 November) and the anniversary of his death (12 March), and Article 4 grants a day off for neither.
Japan stripped every personal name out of its holiday law in 1948; none of today's sixteen national holidays carries an individual's name, and 29 April commemorates the Shōwa era rather than the emperor who reigned through it.
Brazil's first republican decree in 1890 named Tiradentes outright, while the statute in force today says only "21 April".
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.