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July 4, 1776 – Betsy Ross sews the first flag of the United States of America

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It is a matter of some debate as to whether or not Betsy Ross actually created the first flag of the USA. While it is clear that she did create a design of her own which was widely used thereafter (the distinguishing feature of the Betsy Ross Flag is the arrangement of the 13 stars (or mullets, to use the heraldic term) in a circle). But the story of her creation of the flag seems to have been created from whole cloth a generation or so after the event, and there are enough loose threads in the story to make it clear that it is at least partially false (for example, Betsy Ross never met George Washington, and the records of Continental Congress show no committee to design a flag at that time).

The story of Betsy Ross seems to have been embroidered in order to address the lack of female representation in stories of the revolution, while still being an acceptably feminine role model (by the standards of the day) who would not threaten the nation’s social fabric. And for over a century, it had that role sewn up, appearing in history books as fact. It is only more recently that a generation of historians needled by the inconsistencies have cut truth from fiction.

RossBetsy.jpg
By Edward Percy Moran – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g02791.
This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Sufferin’ ’til Suffrage — Schoolhouse Rock

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June 14, 1777 — The Second Continental Congress adopts the Stars and Stripes as its flag

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Variously known as the “Stars and Stripes”, “Old Glory”, or “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the flag of the United States of America originally had 13 alternating stripes of red and white and 13 stars. The 13’s represented the 13 original states of the union, and that numbering is preserved today in the stripes, while each of the 50 states has its own star. The current flag is in fact the 27th incarnation, as it has been updated on numerous occasions as additional states joined the nation – it is also the design that has been in use for the longest period.

The first flag had no set design for the arrangement of stars, and multiple versions of it existed, each one with a different designer and different partisans. The original resolution of the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777 failed to specify an arrangement of stars, and indeed, it was not until 1818 that rules regarding the design of the flag, including the numbers of both stars and horizontal stripes, were formalised.

Hopkinson Flag.svg
By DevinCook (talk) – self-made, Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

The Star-Spangled Banner — Francis Scott Key

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March 8, 1983 — Ronald Reagan labels Soviet Russia an “Evil Empire”

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Ronald Reagan was, it’s fair to say, something of an ideologue. And that quality was never more on display than the day when he addressed the 41st Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals. It was in this speech that he labelled the USSR both an ‘evil empire’ and also ‘the focus of evil in the modern world’. Reagan liked to portray himself as living in a simple world of absolutes, of good and evil. (In truth, the man, his worldview and the actual world were also significantly more complex than that.)

In a prideful speech, he decried the temptation of pride, which in his construction, would have meant disagreeing with him. His conservative base lapped it up, but the speech heightened tensions in the Cold War. Five years later, when meeting with new Soviet leader Gorbachev, Reagan walked back his earlier words, saying that his opinion had changed. So perhaps he was better able to resist the temptation of pride than he’s given credit for.

41st Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals.jpg
By Unknown author or not provided – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Russians — Sting

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April 15, 1986 — The US bombs Libya

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In the 1980s, the two most insecure men in the world were Ronald Reagan and Muammar Qaddafi, both of whom were aging wannabe-alpha males whose greatest fear was being thought weak. Unfortunately, one of them was the US President and the other was the dictator of Libya. So the clash of egos played out in civilian lives lost to terrorism and military lives lost to reprisal.

In 1986, Libyan agents bombed a nightclub in West Germany on April 5, killing three people (one of them a US serviceman) and injuring 229 more. Ten days later, the US sent a force of 45 jets to raid a range of military targets in Libya. The raid was considered a major success, destroying barracks, aircraft and air defences, and killing 45 soldiers and 15-30 civilians. Two members of the attacking force were also killed.

Reagan celebrated like he was personally responsible for the success of the mission; Qaddafi fumed and escalated his support of anti-US terrorism; most of the world condemned both leaders for their actions and the actions they ordered.

USF-111 Libya1986.JPG
By SSGT Woodward – U.S. DefenseImagery [1] photo VIRIN: DF-ST-88-02677 [2], Public Domain, Link

As mentioned in:

Rambozo the Clown — Dead Kennedys