We're just a couple of short days away from celebrating America's 237th Birthday, and you're bound to see the American flag everywhere you look. We've all been told many things about the flag but most of them are, in fact, wrong!

Here are five myths about the flag, from AARP.org.

1.  Betsy Ross did not make the first one.  She did make flags in Philadelphia within a few years after the design first came out in 1777.  But the story about her making the first one didn't come out until 1870.  There's never been any real evidence for it.

2.  The colors don't symbolize American sacrifice.  Officially, the colors don't symbolize anything at all.  They were picked because the first flag of the American colonies had the same colors, and before that, the British Union Jack.

 

3.  It was never a tradition to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Congress.  They've only been reciting it in the House for 25 years, and only since 1999 in the Senate.  They started doing it for political reasons, during the Bush–Dukakis presidential campaign.

4.  It's not illegal to burn the flag.  That's only a myth because no one pays attention to the Supreme Court.  Flag burning USED TO be illegal, but the laws were struck down in 1989, when the Court decided flag burning should be protected as a form of free speech.

5.  It's not patriotic to wear the flag on your clothes.  The U.S. Flag Code says you're not supposed to sell or display anything that has an image of the flag on it, if the flag is a distinguishing mark on it.

The Flag Code isn't enforceable by law, but it's the official guideline for how people are supposed to treat the flag.  So you might think you're being patriotic by wearing it on your tank top or your classy banana hammock, but the Flag Code says it's disrespectful.

 

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