Flag Day 2016: How to properly display the American flag

2016 Am. Samoa Flag Day – Parade (vid 2)

Note: This story was originally publishedin 2015.

Today is Flag Day.

The national observance commemorates the adoption by Congress of the Stars and Stripes as the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, according to theNational Flag Day Foundation.

The observance originated with a Wisconsin teacher who on June 14, 1885, placed a flag in a bottle on his desk and assigned students to write essays on the flag and its significance. That teacher, Bernard Cigrand, spent many years seeking national recognition of Flag Day. President Wilson on May 16, 1916, issued a proclamation for the national observance of Flag Day. In 1949, President Truman signed an act of Congress designating the 14th day of June every year as National Flag Day.

The National Flag Code outlines the proper handling and display of the United States Flag.

If you are planning to fly your Stars and Stripes on Friday, here are some things to remember about proper handling fromwww.usflag.org:

• The flag customarily is displayed from sunrise to sunset but it can be displayed 24 hours a day if it is lighted at night. It should not be displayed during inclement weather.

• The flag should be hoisted briskly.

• When displayed from a staff projecting horizontally or at an angle from the window sill, balcony or front of a building, the union of the flag should be placed at the peak of the staff unless the flag is at half staff. When the flag is suspended over a sidewalk from a rope extending from a house to a pole at the edge of the sidewalk, the flag should be hoisted out, union first, from the building.

• The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

• The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor or water.

• The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.

• The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free.

• The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

For more information on flag etiquette, go to www.usflag.org.

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/06/flag_day_2016_how_to_properly.html