Flag Day

June 14th is Flag Day in the United States commemorating the day, in 1777, that the Second Continental Congress adopted the stars and stripes as the flag of these united states. Who designed the original flag is subject to great dispute despite us all being told in grade school that it was Betsy Ross. It is clear that Ross was probably one of several who made flags for our young country.

As historian and author Laurel Thacher Ulrich wrote:

There is really no point in arguing over who made the first flag because there wasn't one. The stars and stripes that we know today had multiple parents and dozens of siblings. True, on June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed a cryptic resolution specifying that "the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation," but nobody specified the shape of the flag, the arrangement of the stars, or the ratio of the canton to the field. 

An early design of the U.S. flag is now known as the "Betsy Ross flag" and had a field of 13 alternating red and white stripes with a blue canton holding a circle of 13 five-pointed stars - one star for each colony. The distinctive feature of the Ross flag was the arrangement of the stars in a circle, symbolizing no colony would be viewed above another.

Personally I believe our flag is one of the most attractive and love seeing it unfurling in the wind. Americans' pride in the stars and stripes and all they have come to mean is evident wherever you look - on city skyscrapers and country gates, on metropolitan bridges and dinghy docks, on Corinthian columns and even on a veteran's bicycle.

 Photos and slide show ©2011 Claudia Ward
Music: The Star Spangled Banner by The American Military Band

These are just a smattering of places I've seen and enjoyed our flag. How about you?

 

Comments

[ally]

a very nice presentation.
even I felt patriotic.