A Day To Show The Flag

July 4th is the most celebrated national holiday in North America. Much has been written, documented and  respected by every American schoolchild and adult.

History lessons tell us of the colonists who arrived from Europe to The New Country banded together for survival and, in time, began to resent the demanding ties to Europe.
This resentment grew when European authorities imposed a new tax on the imported tea, a commodity loved by all. Rebelling colonists decided to take action .

           
 The  Boston Tea Party  was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773.  They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor, ruining the tea. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution.
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 The Declaration of Independence is the usual name of  statements adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America.

The first official U.S. flag was created during battle on August 3, 1777 at Fort Schuyler  during the siege of the fort . Soldiers cut up their shirts to make the white stripes; scarlet material to form the red was secured from red flannel petticoats of officers' wives, while material for the blue union was secured from Capt. Abraham Swartwout's blue cloth coat.Although the Betsy

Ross legend is controversial, the design is among the earliest 13-star flags featuring a circle of stars of 5 points. The story credits Betsy Ross for sewing the first flag from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington, however no evidence for this exists.

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The design of the flag has been modified 26 times officially since 1777. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress would not legally adopt flags with "stars, white in a blue field" for another year.

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First section arrives

The latest flag-raising activity has taken place in Eastern Wisconsin. Sheboygan-based Acuity Insurance company has raised  the tallest free-standing flagpole in North America, this being a  400-foot flagpole flying an American flag measuring 60 feet high by 120 feet long.
 This is the third attempt to build such a flag pole to accomodate such a large flag. Their  first flag-pole attempt was  erected in 2003, and was 150 feet tall. Later, it was extended to  200 feet, but winter lakewinds sent it to the ground.  The next attempt  was 300 feet, and again, replaced by a 338-foot pole. In April of 2008, it also was succeptable to the winds and was considered unsafe and dismantled. This newly constructed flag-pole has been built by a Manitowoc company known for wind-turbine towers and engineered for Wisconsin winds and winter temperatures.The pole is eleven feet in diameter at its base, and five feet in diameter at its end.

Each star is 3 feet high and each stripe is 4 1/2 feet long in this flag that weighs 300 pounds. Acuity employees took part in the dedication In April 2014, Acuity announced that this latest attempt at the nation’s largest flagpole was to be erected in time for the 2014 July fourth celebration.The flag was raised for the first time on May 22, 2014.
More than 1,000 people filled the Acuity parking lot to take in the pole’s dedication. Danny Gokey, an “American Idol” finalist from Milwaukee, sang the National Anthem.

President Reagan proclaimed 1986 the Year of the Flag. “The colors of our flag signify the qualities of the human spirit we Americans cherish,” Reagan said. “Red for courage and readiness to sacrifice; white for pure intentions and high ideals; and blue for vigilance and justice.”

Enjoy the celebrations and remember....