Flag Day

I forgot chairs so we were relieved to see they had some set up on the lawn of the courthouse.

A "Betsy Ross" Flag. Did you know? George Washington and his committee went to her and had a design with 6-pointed stars and when she showed them how easy it was to make a 5-pointed star with just one cut they left the task in her capable hands.

The main speaker was in full Revolutionary War costume. He said George Washington wore one exactly like it that is in the Smithsonian. Man, I want to go back there so I can really appreciate it.

He called this flag "The Flag that should have been but never was" (LOL This guy is a HUGE TN Fan, as in the actual STATE of TN) Notice it has 16 stars. Tennessee was the 16 state to join the Union. They didn't authorize a new flag after the 15 star flag until there were 20 states in the Union. I learned a lot of history yesterday! LOL
This flag was used in the late '90s for a ceremony in Washington, DC. It had something to do with a TN statue.

He told us a lot of neat things about the flag. I spoke with him before it started and we were talking about the Star Spangled Banner (that is on display in the Smithsonian) that flew at Fort McHenry when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner and how only half of it is actually there because a woman wanted the widows of that battle to have a piece of it and she started cutting pieces off and before she realized it, she had cut apart and given away half of that flag! I was pleased that I knew it was there and could name the fort and some of the details of the event, but I did not know that it had been cut apart!

I hope to be able to invite him back for a homeschool event so we can hear more. He made history come alive for me! I don't know about the children, but I enjoyed it tremendously.