August in the U.S. is a lazy, often hot, summer month. It’s a month for vacation, picnicking, local baseball games, camping, cookouts and beach vacations. It’s not a big month for events to fly the U.S. flag.
Except, perhaps, in Olympics years, when the U.S. flag is often flown a lot, in distant locations. About 50 percent of photographs of the U.S. flag flying in August features an American Olympic athlete. 2019 is not an Olympics year.
Only one event calls for nation-wide flag-flying in August, National Aviation Day on August 19. This event is not specified in the Flag Code, but in a separate provision in the same chapter U.S. Code. Will the president issue a proclamation to fly the flag for National Aviation Day?
Three states celebrate statehood, Colorado, Hawaii and Missouri.
Put these dates on your calendar to fly the flag in August:
- August 1, Colorado statehood (1876, 38th state)
- August 10, Missouri statehood (1821, 24th state)
- August 19, National Aviation Day, 36 USC 1 § 118
- August 21, Hawaii statehood (1959, 50th state)
If Texans want to fly their flags for the children’s returning to school on August 18, no one will complain. The Flag Code says all public schools should be flying the U.S. flag every school day — check to be sure your child’s schools do that.
You may fly your U.S. flag any day. These are just the days suggested in law.
More:
- Did the first flying of the Stars and Stripes occur at Ft. Stanwix, in August 1777, during a British siege? Probably not, historians now say. Still . . .
- Colorado Day is August 1; here’s an old post on the subject
- Your Flag, for $10.99 from Scout Stuff, features a lot of good information on flag etiquette and display; and Boy Scouts of America make a few nickels off of the sale
- O Say, Can You See, a blog of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, has pointers on flag etiquette, and a lot of neat stories about the flag
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 