Don't Know Much

Don’t Know Much About® Flag Day (DKMAM #20)

FLAG DAY is celebrated on June 14 in honor of the adoption of the American flag by the Second Continental Congress in 1777.

In 1877, Congress ordered the flag to be flown from every government building on June 14 to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the official birth of the American flag. With its thirteen red and white stripes in honor of the original states, the U.S. flag has has changed a lot since 1777, with 50 stars now representing the states. But the familiar symbol of America has a surprisingly obscure history. How much do you know about the “stars and stripes”?

True or False? (Answers below)
1. The original design, with 13 stars in a circle, was the handiwork of seamstress Betsy Ross.
2. The American flag is never lowered to honor visiting heads of state.
3. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, composed in 1776, always included the words “one nation under God.”
4. It is legal to burn the flag as a form of protest.

You can find a good source of flag history and tradition at this website, US Flag.org:
http://www.usflag.org/history/flagevolution.html

You can also find more information about the National Anthem and the flag that inspired it in this videoblog:

http://www.dontknowmuch.com/2010/03/today-in-history-birth-of-an-anthem/

Answers
1. False, probably. The Betsy Ross legend has largely been discredited. The likely father of the flag design was Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration from Pennsylvania and a member of the Continental Navy Board.
2. True. In a long-standing tradition, the flag is never dipped to any other nation’s, including during the Olympics.
3. Double False. The Pledge was composed in 1892 and the words “under God” were added in 1953.
4. True. The Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag in protest is speech protected under the Fifth Amendment.

DKMA Minute #2-Loving the 14th Amendment

[podcast format=”video”]http://www.dontknowmuch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DKMAM-Loving.mov[/podcast]

America’s Hidden History: A Road Trip

Headed to the usual tourist spots like Boston and St. Augustine? Don’t miss these often overlooked landmarks just down the road.

With the summer travel season upon us, many families are gearing up for trips to historic hot spots. Gettysburg, Philadelphia and Mount Vernon are all crowd-pleasers, but there are many other interesting sites that don’t always attract throngs. Some are in national parks, some off the beaten path and some in the shadow of more familiar landmarks — literally, just a few miles away. Here are a handful of places from America’s hidden history, involving tales that your textbooks might have left out:

Headed to Boston?
Beantown tops New England’s list of historic stops, yet don’t forget Haverhill, Mass. The town features one of the first permanent statues erected to honor a woman in America: a murderous Massachusetts mother who was one of America’s most famous women. Hannah Duston was captured by Abenaki Indians in 1697 and, after a long march, she and two other captives managed to kill and scalp the Indian family holding them — six of them children. Duston made her way home and became a legend in her time. The statue in her honor — scalps in one hand, hatchet in the other — was erected in Haverhill in 1874. (The scalps are gone now, but the dispute over the spelling of her last name rages on. Some historians argue that it should be Dustin.)

Headed to St. Augustine?
While tourists flock to this Florida town to visit the first permanent European settlement in America, fewer visitors find their way to Fort Matanzas, about 14 miles south. Its name comes from the Spanish word for “slaughters.” The fort is near the site of a mass execution of shipwrecked Frenchmen in the fall of 1565, killed because they were Protestants. Victims of a religious war, they were America’s true first pilgrims, having come here in search of a place to worship 56 years before the Mayflower sailed.

Headed to Independence Hall?
A few blocks from this famous place in Philadelphia, a plaque at Walnut and Third streets marks the site of Fort Wilson, named for a little-known founding father. Scottish-born James Wilson came to America in 1765 and became a successful attorney. He was a leader in the independence movement and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. But during the American Revolution, militiamen angry about food shortages and price gouging attacked Wilson and other city leaders in Wilson’s Philadelphia home. During the “Fort Wilson Riot,” five men died before Wilson and his colleagues were rescued by Continental Army troops. As a framer of the Constitution, Wilson is credited with creating the system of “electors” to choose a president but also was the first and only Supreme Court justice to be jailed.

Headed to Saratoga Battlefield?
Saratoga National Historical Park in New York hosts a statue of the boot of Benedict Arnold, where he led a charge in one of American history’s most important victories and was wounded in the leg not long before he became America’s most notorious traitor. Nearby is Fort Ticonderoga, set above Lake Champlain. It was here in May 1775 that Arnold helped capture the British fort, securing the cannons that later chased the British army from Boston. Arnold’s role in this crucial attack, however, was deliberately “airbrushed” out of most history books.

You can read and learn more about the background of these places in my bestseller America’s Hidden History
This blog is excerpted from my article that originally appeared in USA Weekend.

Grateful appreciation to webmaster Ron Tuell for permission to use the
illustration of Hannah Dustin, taken from the website http://www.ci.haverhill.ma.us/

“Loving” the 14th Amendment: A Videoblog

Today’s videoblog is about the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Ratified after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment is one of the three “Reconstruction” Amendments and it granted full citizenship rights to former slaves. It also established the very important judicial concepts of “due process of law” and “equal protection.” Both of these clauses have been central to some of the most important Supreme Court decisions in recent history including Brown v Board of Education and Roe v Wade.

Here is a link to my blog on the 14th Amendment including the full text: http://www.dontknowmuch.com/2009/07/today-in-history-a-very-significant-amendment/

And this is a Link to my blog on the Loving Case and Gay Marriage: http://www.dontknowmuch.com/2009/04/a-question-of-loving/

Posted on August 5, 2009 Comment Share:

The Exciting Launch of the Don’t Know Much About Minutes

Got a minute?

Today I am launching a new venture in the Don’t Know Much About series: the “Don’t Know Much About Minute.”

Starting with today’s inaugural videoblog, these short videos are my way of starting a conversation. In just a few, short minutes, we’ll bust some myths, reveal some “Hidden History,” talk about books, geography, the Bible, holidays. Everything you need to Know! And More. I’ll connect the past with the headline events that influence our lives. And we’ll have fun doing it.

These videoblogs will become a regular feature of the www.dontknowmuch.com website.

Please let me know what you think by leaving a Comment. Enjoy!

Posted on August 3, 2009 Comment Share:

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