flag day

(sometimes caps.) Brit.

See tag day.

[1910-15]

* * *

▪ United States holiday

also called  National Flag Day 

      in the United States, a day honouring the national flag (United States of America, flag of the), observed on June 14. The holiday commemorates the date in 1777 when the United States approved the design for its first national flag.

      The idea to set aside a day to honour the national flag came from several sources. Bernard J. Cigrand, a Wisconsin schoolteacher, in 1885 urged his students to observe June 14 as “Flag Birthday.” He later wrote an essay published in a Chicago newspaper that urged Americans to proclaim this date as the day to celebrate the flag. In 1888 William T. Kerr of Pennsylvania founded the American Flag Day Association of Western Pennsylvania, an organization to which he dedicated his life. A lesser-known claim is that of George Morris of Connecticut, who is said to have organized the first formal celebration of the day in Hartford in 1861.

      In 1916 Pres. Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14 as the official date for Flag Day, and in 1949 the U.S. Congress permanently established the date as National Flag Day. Although Flag Day is not an official federal holiday, Pennsylvania celebrates the day as a state holiday. Each year the U.S. president delivers an address that proclaims the week of June 14 as National Flag Week, and all Americans are encouraged to fly U.S. flags during that week.

* * *