Flag Day
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40 free Flag Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Flag Day is one of the quieter dates on the U.S. calendar. There are no fireworks and nobody gets the day off, yet the story behind it runs from a one-room schoolhouse to the White House, taking in teachers, presidents, songwriters and a few stubborn campaigners along the way. This quiz covers the holiday itself: how it started, who pushed for it and how it is observed. It also covers the flag it honors, including the meaning of the stars, stripes and colors, the etiquette rules people often get wrong, the most famous flags in the country's history and the music written about them. The questions range from easy to challenging, so they suit a classroom, a family cookout, a senior center or a veterans' hall. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and the whole set can be played on screen or printed for a group.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US president, born in the 1940s, celebrates his birthday every year on Flag Day?
Donald Trump
Donald Trump was born in Queens, New York, in 1946, the same year as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He turned 31 on the day the Stars and Stripes turned 200.
Q 02Which US military branch celebrates its birthday every year on Flag Day?
The Army
The Army traces its birth to the Continental force that Congress created in 1775, exactly two years before it adopted the Stars and Stripes. That makes the service more than a year older than the nation it defends.
Q 03Which two words did President Eisenhower sign into the Pledge of Allegiance on Flag Day in 1954?
Under God
Under God was the last of several rewrites of the Pledge. The first 1892 wording did not even name the United States, speaking only of 'my Flag'.
Q 04On which date is Flag Day celebrated, marking the 1777 adoption of the Stars and Stripes?
June 14
June 14 has been proclaimed by presidents for more than a century, yet Flag Day has never been made a federal holiday. Federal law only asks the president to proclaim it each year.
Q 05Which Philadelphia upholsterer does family legend credit with sewing the first Stars and Stripes?
Betsy Ross
Betsy Ross was first credited by her relatives in 1870, almost a century after the event. No record from her own lifetime has been found to back the story.
Q 06Under the US Flag Code, flying the Stars and Stripes upside down is reserved as a signal of what?
Dire distress
Dire distress is the only reason the code accepts, and only where life or property is in extreme danger. Mourning is shown a different way, by lowering the flag to half-staff.
Q 07What does the US Flag Code call the preferred way to dispose of a flag too worn to display?
Burning it
Burning it in a dignified way is what the code prefers. The code is guidance only, though, and sets no penalty for anyone who retires a flag some other way.
Q 08Which 1969 mission planted the first US flag on the Moon, only for engine exhaust to topple it?
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin looked up in time to see the flag fall as the lunar module lifted off. Later crews planted their flags farther from the lander.
Q 09Which nickname for the US flag began as sea captain William Driver's name for his own ship's banner?
Old Glory
Old Glory spent part of the Civil War sewn inside a coverlet in Nashville. Driver ripped the seams open to reveal it when the city fell in 1862.
Q 10Which president issued the 1916 proclamation that first set a nationwide Flag Day?
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson acted after three decades of lobbying by flag-day campaigners. His proclamation was only a request, and Congress did not write the observance into law for another 33 years.
Q 11The flag that inspired the US national anthem flew over which Baltimore harbor stronghold in 1814?
Fort McHenry
Fort McHenry's commander had asked for a flag so large that the British would have no trouble seeing it from a distance. It measured 30 by 42 feet.
Q 12Which Maryland lawyer wrote the 1814 poem that was later set to music as 'The Star-Spangled Banner'?
Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key's verses were sung to a popular British tune for more than a century before the song became the official national anthem in 1931.
Q 13Which state's admission in 1959 added the 50th star to the US flag, a design used since 1960?
Hawaii
Q 21Which president signed the 1949 Act of Congress that made National Flag Day an official observance?
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman signed with William T. Kerr looking on, a campaigner who had chaired the American Flag Day Association for half a century.
Q 22In the 1782 explanation of the Great Seal, whose colors match the US flag, what does red signify?
Valor
Valor, paired with hardiness, was the meaning given to red, with white for purity and blue for justice. Back in 1777 the flag's own colors had been given no official meaning at all.
Q 23Which state, where Congress adopted the flag in 1777, first made Flag Day a legal holiday in 1937?
Pennsylvania
Hawaii followed Alaska into statehood within months, so the 49-star flag was short-lived. The 50-star design has since flown longer than any earlier version.
Q 14What do the thirteen red and white stripes on the United States flag stand for?
The original colonies
The original colonies briefly had company: the flag grew to fifteen stripes when two more states joined. Congress went back to thirteen in 1818 and let only the stars keep growing.
Q 15By military custom, a US flag is folded into which shape, with only the blue field of stars showing?
A triangle
A triangle is the finished shape, usually reached after thirteen folds. The fold is custom only: the Flag Code itself says nothing about how to put a flag away.
Q 16The US Flag Code says a flag may fly outdoors around the clock only on which condition?
Lighting at night
Lighting at night is the one exception to the code's custom of flying the flag only from sunrise to sunset. Its own phrase is 'properly illuminated during the hours of darkness'.
Q 17On which Pacific island did six Marines plant the US flag atop Mount Suribachi in February 1945?
Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima's famous photograph actually shows the second flag raised that day, a larger replacement for the first. It won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.
Q 18The Pledge of Allegiance debuted in 1892 at school events marking 400 years since whose voyage?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus's anniversary gave a children's magazine its moment: it printed the Pledge while also selling flags to schools, and tens of thousands of schools bought one.
Q 19On which US holiday does the Flag Code call for flags at half-staff until noon, then full staff?
Memorial Day
Memorial Day was first observed nationally in 1868 under the name Decoration Day. After noon the flag goes back to full height for the rest of the day.
Q 20Honor America Days, set by Congress, run for 21 days from Flag Day through which holiday?
Independence Day
Independence Day closes the period, and it is also the date on which a new star is officially added to the flag after a state is admitted.
Pennsylvania acted 44 years after Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, campaigned for the flag to fly on Philadelphia's public buildings. Nationally, Flag Day has never been a federal day off.
Q 24Which teacher, later a dentist, is called the Father of Flag Day for an 1885 classroom observance?
Bernard J. Cigrand
Bernard J. Cigrand once reckoned he had given 2,188 speeches on patriotism and the flag. He campaigned for three decades before a president finally proclaimed the day.
Q 25Stony Hill School in Waubeka, where Flag Day was first formally observed in 1885, is in which state?
Wisconsin
Wisconsin's one-room schoolhouse has been restored, and Waubeka is now home to the National Flag Day Americanism Center, where a bust honors the teacher who led that first observance.
Q 26In the Flag Resolution of 1777, the thirteen white stars on blue were said to represent what?
A new constellation
A new constellation was all the resolution said. It gave no layout for the stars, so early flag makers set them in rows, circles and other patterns of their own.
Q 27Which 1861 battle, whose rescued flag rallied the North, prompted the first call for a Flag Day?
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter's flag was carried north by the fort's commander and drew a huge rally in New York. That summer Hartford, Connecticut, held the earliest claimed Flag Day celebration.
Q 28Which state's Bear Flag Revolt against Mexican rule began in 1846 on the date now kept as Flag Day?
California
California's rebels were 33 American settlers who seized the town of Sonoma and declared a republic. It lasted just 25 days.
Q 29Which word for the study of flags was coined by American scholar Whitney Smith in the late 1950s?
Vexillology
Vexillology joins the Latin vexillum, a square flag carried by Roman cavalry, to the Greek ending for 'study'. Until then, flags had been treated as a corner of heraldry.
Q 30Which composer wrote 'The Stars and Stripes Forever', the official national march of the US?
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa composed it on Christmas Day 1896, aboard a ship bringing him home from a vacation in Europe. Congress gave the march its official title in 1987.