Not a very common sight that one could see was to see me watching a movie or spending some time with the dull and sometimes, the colorful history of any nation.
This has been a truth since my childhood and today, I will not hesitate to accept the fact that I am not one among the greatest patriots of this nation. But one more thing that I must feel proud of myself is that I know much about the flags of America.
Though everything in history seemed to be dull, one thing that caught my attention was the flags history. This was mainly because of my grandmother who used to tell me interesting stories about the flags of America and the other important historical flags of the nation. I got habituated to not any fairy tale stories during my childhood but to the interesting facts about the nation’s flags.
The reality behind the screen was that my grandmother was a great patriot and she used to go though the past history of the nation regularly till the time she lived. She inspired me and my sister to learn about the flags of the United States of America. We loved to listen to those stories and we loved them more than our history books because she represented the things in a very interesting way, which was much better that the history books!
One thing that I learned from my grandmother was that the flags existed from the prehistoric times when it was only in the shape of a staff and was known as vexilloid and the first silk flag came into existence somewhere between 6000 BC to 3000 BC. She also told us about the history of the American flag.
I remember that when I curiously asked about the person who designed the US flag, she looked and at me and with a smile she said that no one knows about the person who created the American flag. The flags history always gave some interesting knowledge and this I decided to find out the person who actually designed the US flag. With a little bit of effort, I found that there were two people who have their names attached to the credit.
Some people thing that Francis Hopkinson was the person who designed the US flag. There is another group of people who claim that the flag was designed by Philadelphia seamstress, Betsy Ross. I also found out that the first flag act of 14 June 1777 adopted the flag with 13 stars and 13 red and white stripes as the official flag.
This was later amended. However, the first official flag of the country was the one, which included 12 starts and 12 red and white stripes. Later on I learned about the history of the flags of various countries.Grandmother also told us about the Flag Day history.
My first impression was that the day must be a weekend but later on I came to know that the June 14 was the day, which is celebrated as the Flag Day. One thing that surprised me was that the Flag Day is never celebrated as a national holiday but it is celebrated as a state holiday in Pennsylvania
This day is associated with a parade, which is known as the Flag Day parade and has been celebrated since 1952. My grandmother also gave us a long list of historical flags of USA. The most popular of them are Betsy Ross Flag, The 13 Stars Flag to The 50 Stars Flag, Grand Union Flag, President’s Flag, Bedford Flag etc.
Flags history can be very interesting if it can be represented in an interesting manner, which my grandmother did quite successfully. Thanks to her that she took up all the pain to educate us about the flags of our country!
