Washington D.C. Events

The National Cherry Blossom Festival runs for several weeks from late March, built around a bloom whose date cannot be predicted far ahead.

Independence Day on 4 July puts fireworks over the Mall with the monuments behind them, and brings very large crowds.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival takes over the Mall for two weeks around the end of June, free and genuinely substantial.

Inaugurations every four years in January fill the city entirely; so, less predictably, do major marches and demonstrations, which are a normal feature of the calendar here.