Coast Guard Day is held every August 4 to commemorate the founding of the United States Coast Guard as the Revenue Marine on 4 August, 1790, by then Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. On that date, Congress, guided by Hamilton, authorized the building of a fleet of the first ten Revenue Service cutters, whose responsibility would be enforcement of the first tariff laws enacted by Congress under the Constitution.^[1][2][3]

The Coast Guard received its present name through an act of Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on 28 January 1915 that merged the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Life-Saving Service, and provided the nation with a single maritime service dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing the nation's maritime laws.^[4][5][1]