Flag Day is Sunday, June 14! This annual holiday celebrates the history and symbolism of the American flag. Lets learn about the history of this holiday and the beloved Stars and Stripes!

WHAT IS FLAG DAY?

Flag Day is a celebration of the American flag that occurs each year on the anniversary of the flag's official adoption, June 14.

What we know fondly as the "Stars and Stripes" was adopted by the Continental Congress as the official American flag on June 14, 1777, in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Colonial troops fought under many different flags with various symbols and slogans: rattlesnakes, pine trees, and eagles; "Don't Tread on Me," "Liberty or Death," and "Conquer or Die," to name a few.

The first official national flag had 13 white stars on a blue field and 13 alternating red and white stripes-both representing the 13 original colonies. Today, there are 50 stars, one for each state in the Union, but the 13 stripes remain.

Flag Day was first celebrated in 1877-on the flag's 100th birthday-and persists today. On Flag Day, many towns and cities hold parades and events to celebrate the flag, and the colors are to be flown at all government buildings. Flag Day is not an official federal holiday, but its observance is traditionally proclaimed each year by the President of the United States.

Who Made the First American Flag?

Although many people believe that Betsy Ross designed and sewed the first flag, there is no true proof of that. However, records do indicate that she made ensigns and pennants for the Philadelphia navy during the war.

Source: The Old Farmer's Almanac

Though Father's Day wasn't made a national holiday until 1972, the efforts of one woman in Washington sparked a movement to celebrate dads long before then.

THE HISTORY OF FATHER'S DAY

SONORA DODD AND FATHER'S DAY

The first known Father's Day service occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908, thanks to the efforts of Grace Golden Clayton. The service was to honor all fathers, especially those hundreds who were killed during a devastating mine explosion in Monongah (just a few miles from Fairmont) the previous year. However, the observance did not become an annual event, and it was not promoted-very few outside the local area knew about it.

In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, also was inspired to create a holiday honoring fathers. William Jackson Smart, her father, was a farmer and Civil War veteran that raised Sonora and her five younger brothers by himself after his wife, Ellen, died giving birth to their youngest child in 1898. While attending a Mother's Day church service in 1909, Sonora, then 27, came up with the idea.

Within a few months, Sonora had convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to celebrate fathers. She proposed June 5, her father's birthday, but the ministers chose the third Sunday in June so that they would have more time after Mother's Day (the second Sunday in May) to prepare their sermons. So it was that on June 19, 1910, Sonora delivered presents to handicapped fathers, boys from the YMCA decorated their lapels with fresh-cut roses (red for living fathers, white for the deceased), and the city's ministers devoted their homilies to fatherhood.

A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

The widely publicized events in Spokane struck a chord that reached all the way to Washington, D.C., and Sonora's celebration started its path to becoming a national holiday.

* In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson and his family personally observed the day.

* Eight years later, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of Father's Day "to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations."

* In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order that the holiday be celebrated on the third Sunday in June.

* Under President Richard Nixon, in 1972, Congress passed an act officially making Father's Day a national holiday. (Six years later, Sonora died at age 96.)

Source: The Old Farmer's Almanac