Happy Flag Day!
By Anthonia Akitunde in Miscellaneous on Jun 14, 2009 4:15PM
Today is Flag Day! As the nation recognizes the stars and stripes, take pride in knowing the holiday has a connection to our fair city.
Although the American flag was adopted by the second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, the idea for Flag Day was created in 1885. Bernard J. Cigrand, a teacher from Waubeka, Wis. had his class "gather around a 10-inch U.S. flag that stood in a bottle on his desk," according to the Tribune. It was the first formal observance of the flag.
Cigrand moved to Chicago the following year to become a dentist and brought his patriotic love of the flag with him. Along with fellow flag enthusiast Leroy Van Horn, Cigrand created the American Flag Day Association to promote Flag Day celebrations. On June 14, 1894 the Association held the first public school celebration of Flag Day in five Chicago parks (Douglas, Garfield, Humboldt, Lincoln and Washington) with over 300,000 children taking part, according to USFlag.org, a website dedicated to the American flag.
After lobbying for two decades through newspaper articles and speeches, President Woodrow Wilson announced the national observance of Flag Day in 1916. President Harry S. Truman made the observance a national holiday through an Act of Congress, which proclaimed every June 14 National Flag Day on August 3, 1949.