Summer Holidays, Observances, & Notable Dates Posters
for the classroom, home schoolers, and theme decor for offices.

Summer, the season with the longest daylight hours of the year, is the warmest season and opposite of Winter, the coldest season of the year on Earth. The Summer season is after the transitional season of Spring and before the transition season of Autumn.

Astronomically 'Summer' begins at the summer solstice (sol + stitium= stoppage), when the sun is furthest from the celestial equator, and appears to stop in the northern sky. In the Northern Hemisphere summer lasts from around June 20 to around September 20. • animated .gif of seasonal changes.

Meteorologically summer is considered to take the months of June, July, and August in the Northern Hemisphere; and December, January and February in the Southern Hemisphere. The English word 'summer' is from the Old Norse sumar, a geographical setting where summer is greatly appreciated to balance the cold weather of winter.

In the U.S. summer holidays include Memorial Day, Flag Day, Father's Day, Juneteenth, the 4th of July, Women's Equality Day, and Labor Day.

Summer Observances and Events lists -
June list | July list | August list | September list

History of the American Flag, Art Print

Old Glory, 1777, Art Print

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress resolved: "That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation." The resolution did not specify the arrangement, orientation, or number of points in the stars, so there were many flags in different configurations, crafted by many different hands, during the Revolution.

Tradition has it that a recently widowed Philadelphia seamstress by the name of Betsy Ross, née Griscom, was visited in mid-1776 by George Washington, George Ross and Robert Morris, to sew a flag. The version attributed to her with the thirteen five pointed stars laid in a circle is portrayed in contemporary battlefield paintings by John Trumbull and Charles Willson Peale (though I have been unable to locate any such paintings online).

In 1916 Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day, and in 1949 National Flag Day was established by Congress. Flag Day is not celebrated as a Federal holiday.

• more Flag posters

Fathers' Day honors fathers (and male parenting), and has a several inspirations, not the least a balance for Mother's Day celebrated in May. In the U.S. Fathers' Day is celebrated on the 3rd Sunday in June.

FYI on the different spellings: Fathers' Day is the plural possessive, Father's Day is the singular possessive, and while not technically correct is the preferred spelling.

Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19th, is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

It was on June 19th, 1865, that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862 by Abraham Lincoln, with an effective date of January 1, 1863, reached the slaves in Galveston, Texas, which was almost entirely under Confederate control.

The General Order No. 3 read - "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

Juneteenth: A Novel by John F. Callahan, Ralph Waldo Ellison

Labor Day - The first Monday of September

"The strictest law oft becomes the severest injustice."

• Images of Labor poster series
• more September Observances

Summer, from a Series of the Four Seasons, Commissioned by Emperor Maximilian II (1527-76) 1573, Giclee Print
Giuseppe Arcimboldo