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American Circus Day

Next celebratedSaturday, April 3, 2027

America's first circus ran in a roofless wooden arena at Market and Twelfth Streets in Philadelphia, on a ring floored with soil and sawdust. April 3 keeps the date of that 1793 performance.

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Last updated September 2, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEApril 3
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYFun
SUBCATEGORYUnique
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An anniversary that nobody signed.

No founder, sponsor or establishment record for American Circus Day has been located, and no federal proclamation or resolution exists under that name or under National Circus Day. The date is given everywhere as the anniversary of the circus John Bill Ricketts opened in Philadelphia in 1793.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

A reviewer counted the crowd at America's first circus

The morning after America's first circus, a Philadelphia paper printed a headcount. Upwards of seven hundred spectators, wrote the reviewer for Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser on 4 April 1793. American Circus Day marks that performance.

That is more than anyone knows about the holiday. The performance is documented down to the ticket, in a next-morning review, a surviving family letter and a line in the President's household accounts. The observance built on it has no such paper trail.

Ricketts and his company spent seven years introducing the circus to North America. The form he brought with him is still being rebuilt.

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ORIGINS

American Circus Day history

INTRODUCTION

Philip Astley did not invent the circus ring. Britannica calls it a device already in use for some time by trick riders. What Astley found was its size.

His first ring ran about 62 feet across. He settled instead on 42 feet, the standard still used in modern circuses. For two years his London show was trick riding and nothing else, until he hired a clown called Mr. Merryman in 1770.

CHAPTER 01

Ricketts builds a ring in the new capital

John Bill Ricketts learned the trade under Charles Hughes, Astley's rival in London. He reached Philadelphia in 1792 and quickly established a riding school in what was then the nation's capital.

On April 3, 1793 he opened a roofless wooden arena at the corner of Market and Twelfth Streets. The ring inside was filled with a mixture of soil and sawdust, forty-two feet across. The same reviewer called the performance beautiful, graceful and superb, in the highest extreme.

Washington came three weeks later. His household accounts record eight tickets bought on April 24, and the same ledger shows tickets for Mrs Washington's maids and for people he enslaved, among them Hercules, Austin, Molly and Ona Judge.

CHAPTER 02

A candle, a ban, and a canvas tent

The end came from a candle. On December 17, 1799 a carpenter left one in the scenery store of Ricketts's Art Pantheon and the building burned to the ground. He performed on into 1800, then chartered a ship and was lost at sea.

The circus that outlived him travelled. In 1825 Joshua Purdy Brown found that Wilmington, Delaware had banned public amusements, so he pitched a canvas pavilion just outside the city limits. The cost of tenting then forced constant movement, and the American one-day stand was born.

CHAPTER 03

A wartime measure that never came undone

By the end of the century the biggest shows moved by rail. When federal restrictions during the First World War capped the number of railroad engines the Ringlings could use, they consolidated their circus with Barnum and Bailey temporarily, for the 1919 season.

The combination made so much money that it became permanent. It ran until 2017, when Feld Entertainment closed the show, and it came back six years later.

CHAPTER 04

A day with no author

Searches of the Federal Register and GovInfo return nothing under American Circus Day or under National Circus Day. No sponsoring organisation was found, and no source credits anyone with starting the day. The earliest archived listing of the observance was captured in 2022, which fixes a date for the listing and not for the day.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Astley hires a clown

Philip Astley added a clown, musicians and other performers to a London show that had been trick riding and nothing else, the step credited with producing the modern circus.

Ricketts opens in Philadelphia

John Bill Ricketts is credited with introducing the circus to the United States, opening on April 3 at the corner of Market and Twelfth Streets.

Canvas replaces the wooden arena

Joshua Purdy Brown became the first American showman to put his circus under a full canvas tent, cutting it loose from fixed buildings.

Barnum enters the business

P.T. Barnum launched a 100-wagon travelling museum, menagerie, caravan and circus, and put the whole thing on the railroad the following year.

The Greatest Show On Earth closes

Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey played its final performance on May 21 at the Nassau County Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

The show comes back

Feld Entertainment reopened the production on September 29 in Bossier City, Louisiana, six years after closing it.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about American Circus Day

Astley never called it a circus

The word was introduced by Charles Hughes in 1782, when he opened his Royal Circus a few hundred yards south of Astley's amphitheatre.

The first American circus star was a horse

Ricketts's steed Cornplanter is regarded as the first star animal performer in the United States.

Ricketts jumped over a ribbon 12 feet up

His signature act was a leap from a galloping horse over a ribbon suspended 12 feet in the air, landing back in the saddle.

The Kaiser's army studied the circus

When Barnum and Bailey toured Germany from 1897, the Kaiser's army followed the show to learn its methods for moving thousands of people, animals and supplies.

The big top grew to seat 10,000

Barnum and Bailey's tent eventually held three rings, two stages, an outer hippodrome track for chariot races and an audience of 10,000.

Mrs Washington is so much indisposed with a cold as to make her fear encreasing it by going to the Circus this afternoon. The President & rest of the family propose to be Spectators at the exhibition of Mr Rickets.
George and Martha WashingtonReplying to Samuel and Elizabeth Powel, April 24, 1793

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love American Circus Day

INFRASTRUCTURE

Ricketts built his own arenas. His company travelled by boat.

Cities along the Eastern Seaboard had no entertainment buildings, so Ricketts had to raise his own arenas before he could perform in them. His company often travelled by boat because the roads were so rough.

ETHICS

The form it marks has changed underneath it

Ringling retired its elephants in 2016 and closed the following year, after ticket sales kept falling. The production that returned in 2023 opened with 75 performers from 18 countries and none of the lion, elephant or other animal acts long associated with it.

SCALE

A circus wintered like a small town

Between 1922 and 1929 the American Circus Corporation owned five circuses and kept three of them at Peru, Indiana, where forty plus elephants stayed every winter. Those barns are now a National Landmark housing the International Circus Hall of Fame.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate American Circus Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Stand on the corner where it started

The arena stood at Twelfth and Market Streets in Philadelphia, and a Pennsylvania state marker now names the spot at PSFS Plaza. The marker was dedicated there in July 1982.

TOUR

Tour a circus winter quarters

The Ringlings used Baraboo, Wisconsin as their home base from 1884 to 1918, and the site is now Circus World, run by the Wisconsin Historical Society. Its buildings are the largest and oldest group of circus structures in the United States.

FIND

Find the world's largest circus model

The Howard Bros. Circus Model at The Ringling in Sarasota runs to more than 42,000 pieces across 3,800 square feet. Built by Howard Tibbals, it recreates an early twentieth-century tented city in miniature.

READ

Read an eyewitness account

John Durang worked for Ricketts from 1795 to 1800 and is believed to have been the first American-born circus clown. His memoir, edited by Alan S. Downer and published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1966, is the main firsthand record of the enterprise.

CATCH

Catch the show that came back

Feld Entertainment relaunched the Ringling production with a tour it said would visit more than 50 cities in North America. Feld's announcement listed a unicyclist riding a machine over 34 feet tall.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know American Circus Day?

1 / 8

In what year did the first circus performance in the United States take place?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing, so offices, banks and schools stay open. No federal proclamation, law or resolution exists under American Circus Day or National Circus Day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

14sources
6primary records
10independently dated
Primary records
Feld Entertainment2023-09
The Legendary Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Debuts The Greatest Show On Earth
The producer's own launch announcement for the returning show, giving the cast of 75 performers from 18 countries and the opening on September 29, 2023 in Bossier City, Louisiana.
View source
Feld Entertainment2022-05-18
Feld Entertainment Announces the Return of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
The 2022 announcement that the circus would return, with the plan for a tour visiting more than 50 cities in North America.
View source
Wisconsin Historical Society
Circus World: Our Treasures
The state historical society's account of the Ringling brothers' Baraboo winter quarters, used as their home base from 1884 to 1918 and now the largest and oldest group of circus structures in the United States.
View source
The Ringling
Circus Museum
The museum's own description of the Howard Bros. Circus Model, more than 42,000 pieces across 3,800 square feet, and of the Museum of the American Circus opened in Sarasota in 1948.
View source
Federation Mondiale du Cirque2026
World Circus Day
The organiser's own page for World Circus Day, confirming that it falls on the third Saturday of April and that the 2026 edition is April 18.
View source
ExplorePAhistory
Ricketts Circus Historical Marker
The Pennsylvania historical marker record for Ricketts Circus, giving the marker's location at 12th and Market Streets in Philadelphia and an account of Ricketts's arrival and repertoire.
View source
Additional coverage
The Washington Papers, University of Virginia2017-09-11
The Circus Comes to Town
Lynn Price's account of the contemporary newspaper record, quoting the Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser review of April 4, 1793 and the Washingtons' letter to Samuel and Elizabeth Powel.
View source
The Washington Papers, University of Virginia2019-10-11
George Washington Sees the Circus: Examining the President's Household Accounts
Carly Dotson's reading of the Presidential Household Financial Accounts held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, including the eight circus tickets bought on April 24, 1793.
View source
Circopedia
John Bill Ricketts
Dominique Jando's detailed account of the first American circus, describing the roofless arena at Market and Twelfth Streets, its ring of soil and sawdust forty-two feet across, and the 1799 fire that destroyed Ricketts's Art Pantheon.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026-07-13
Circus: Philip Astley and the first circuses
The encyclopedia's account of Astley's ring experiments from about 62 feet down to the 42-foot standard, his hiring of a clown in 1770, Charles Hughes introducing the word circus in 1782, and Ricketts's horse Cornplanter.
View source
Smithsonian Magazine2017
America's Big Circus Spectacular Has a Long and Cherished History
Historian Janet M. Davis on the American circus, covering Joshua Purdy Brown's 1825 canvas pavilion outside Wilmington, the railroad shows, the Kaiser's army studying Barnum and Bailey's logistics, and the wartime origin of the 1919 merger.
View source
CBC News and The Associated Press2017-05-21
After 146 years, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus takes final bow
Wire coverage of the final performance on May 21, 2017 at the Nassau County Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, and of the reasons the parent company gave for closing the show.
View source
CBS News2022-05-18
Ringling Brothers circus to relaunch, without animal acts
Reporting that the relaunched production would carry no lion, elephant or other animal acts, and that Ringling had retired its elephants in 2016 before ticket sales continued to fall.
View source
Fremont News-Messenger2023-04-03
Today is: American Circus Day
A newspaper column marking the observance in 2023, showing that the day circulates in print and that its stated rationale is the 1793 anniversary, with no founder named.
View source
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