WASHINGTON (Michigan News Source) – Those 13 red and white stripes, those 50 white stars on a navy background…You’ve seen it a hundred times. Maybe thousands depending on how old you are. The American flag. Old Glory. The Stars and Stripes. The Red, White and Blue.

No matter what you call it, today is the day to celebrate the flag. June 14th. It’s a day that commemorates the anniversary of the day that the national flag was officially adopted – a day that we celebrate and honor the history and symbolism of the American flag.

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President Woodrow Wilson issued the Flag Day proclamation in May of 1916, establishing June 14th as Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 when the Continental Congress approved the design of the American flag. National Flag Day was later signed into law in 1949 by President Harry Truman.

Historically, Flag Day celebrations have included Americans quietly flying the flag in front of their homes as well as very loud and public parades and other patriotic events. Many politicians and state governments re-proclaim the day to be Flag Day and there are Flag Day events all over the United States including the nation’s largest Flag Day celebration in the country, a parade which takes place in Three Oaks, Michigan.

Even President Joe Biden took time out of his busy schedule to proclaim this to be National Flag Day and National Flag Week. He said in the proclamation, “On Flag Day and during National Flag Week, we celebrate the enduring strength and promise that the stars and stripes on our flag have always embodied as they fly proudly across our country and around the world…Old Glory stands for hope, pride, and progress.  It is stamped on our exports, hung from booming factories, and painted on spacecraft that travel high above our skies – a symbol of the American spirit that keeps innovating, building, and breaking boundaries.”

According to Time Magazine, “On June 14, 1777 in Philadelphia, the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress adopted a resolution that read the following: ‘Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.’”

When Congress chose the same colors of red, white and blue for the Great Seal of the United States, first used in 1782, they said that the red was for valor and hardness, the white for purity and innocence and the blue for vigilance, perseverance and justice.

Flag etiquette has been defined by Congress under the U.S. Flag Code – which has been the topic of conversation recently after the Biden Administration was accused of ignoring the flag code and flying a Pride flag at the White House in the center of a Pride display at the same height of the American flags that were to the left and right of it. Others pointed out that there was a U.S. flag atop the White House, clearly flying at the highest point.

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This controversy showed that there are many in the country who take the flag code seriously. Those who do include politicians, workers and students at public schools, state governments, and the military during the funerals of veterans. A United States flag is provided to drape the casket or accompanying urn of a deceased veteran who served honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces and military members take great pride and time folding the flag before giving it to a family member of the deceased. Each fold, all 13 of them, has a meaning, the last one, when the flag is completely folded where the stars are uppermost, is to remind us of our Nation’s motto, “In God We Trust.”

The flag is to be treated with respect and dignity and back in the “olden times” flag etiquette was actually taught in many schools across the nation.

Legend has it that it was Philadelphia upholsterer Betsy Ross who designed America’s first flag with 13 red and white stripes and 13 white stars arranged in a circle, representing America’s first 13 colonies. Although most people generally agree that she was the creator of the flag, the U.S. Department of the Interior explains: “Historians have never been able to verify Ross’s legendary role as the creator of the Stars and Stripes.”

They go on to say, “But the likely apocryphal story that in June 1776 General [George] Washington consulted with Ross on the creation of a new flag, and she persuaded him to alter its stars from six-pointed to the easier-to-sew five-pointed took hold in the national patriotic imagination.”

According to PBS, there are several locations where the United States flag is flown 24 hours a day either by law or presidential proclamation. These locations include the White House in Washington D.C., Flag House Square in Baltimore, Maryland; The Lexington Battle Green in Massachusetts; United States customs ports of entry; Fort McHenry, National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore, Maryland; Flag House Square in Baltimore, Maryland; United States Marine Corps Memorial (Iwo Jima) in Arlington, Virginia and on the grounds of the National Memorial Arch in Valley Force State Park, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

The National Flag Foundation also lists several fascinating facts about our flag that most people probably aren’t aware of…

Did you know that there have been 27 versions of the American flag?

Did you know that the current flag wasn’t professionally made? It was 17-year-old high school student, Robert G. Heft of Lancaster Ohio who submitted his design in a contest in 1958 and was chosen as the winner by President Dwight Eisenhower over 1,500 submissions. It’s the only flag so far that has lasted more than 50 years.

And did you know that six flags have made it to the moon? In addition to astronaut Neil Armstrong showing it off to the world, five additional Apollo missions planted the flag on the surface of the moon as well including Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.