Fraternity-Testvériség, 1966 (44. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1966-11-01 / 11. szám

10

FRATERNITY

HISTORICAL FACTS

FIRST FOREIGN RECOGNITION OF THE AMERICAN FLAG

On November 16, 1776, 190 years ago, the newly adopted flag of the American colonies, flown by the American ship Andrea Doria, received unofficial foreign recognition when the Dutch Fort of Orange, on an island in the Dutch West Indies, gave it an eleven-gun salute. The commander of a nearby British island sent a protest to London; London complained to the Netherlands; and by way of apology to Great Britain, the Dutch governor of the island was recalled. The flag he saluted was not the Star and Stripes, but the Grand Union flag which consisted merely of thirteen alternate red and white horizontal stripes, with the Union Jack in place of the field of stars. The Dutch people were greatly in sympathy with the principles of the American Declaration of Independence and later patterned their own government, although a constitutional monarchy, on these principles. In the following year, on June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the design of the American flag which evolved into the Stars and Stripes we know today.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN SPEAKS AT GETTYSBURG

On November 19, 1863, 103 years ago, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, dedicated a portion of the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as a national cemetery. His 286-word speech has become a classic. It is engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and is known to millions of Americans. Today, with American boys dying on the battlefields in Vietnam, Lincoln’s words have a special timeliness: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

PILGRIMS SIGN MAYFLOWER COMPACT

On November 21, 1620, 346 years ago, on arriving off the shores of Cape Cod in what is now Massachusetts, forty-one of the passengers aboard the Mayflower, which brought the Pilgrims to America, signed the famous “Mayflower Compact” as the boat lay at anchor. The Pilgrims, as they were called, were mostly members of a small English religious community which had previously settled in the Netherlands to escape persecution. Before disembarking from their ship, the Mayflower, they deliberated about the kind of community they wished to establish. To avoid possible tyranny or anarchy, they decided to submit to such government and governors as they should by common consent make and choose. This agreement was written and signed by them, and is now known as the “Mayflower Compact”. It is one of the important documents in the history of American democracy. — (A. C. N. S.)