camwyn | *pops a few knuckles* Right.

The original design elements of the American flag- the stars, the stripes, and two out of the three colours- were based on George Washington's coat of arms- Argent two bars gule in chief three mullets of the second. (Trans.- on a silver or white background, two horizontal red bars, and in the top silver or white division, three red five-pointed stars.)

In honour of the day, the man, and the country, allow me to offer the portion of the national anthem that I have committed to memory:

O, say can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare,
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there

O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen
Through the mists of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes
What is that which the breeze
As it fitfully blows
O'er the towering steep
Half conceals, half discloses?

Then it catches the gleam
Of the morning's first beam
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream

'Tis the star-spangled banner- o long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O, thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation
Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved them a nation

Then conquer we must,
when our cause it is just
And this be our motto-
'in God is our trust'

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Thank you.