Running it up the flagpole

Two months ago, I was browsing Reddit when I stumbled across a post that said: “TIL that the current American Flag design originated as a school project from Robert G Heft, who received a B- for lack of originality, yet was promised an A if he successfully got it selected as the national flag. The design was later chosen by President Eisenhower for the national flag of the US.” After I read the submission, which received more than 21,000 upvotes, I was skeptical enough of the story to dig deeper. The result is my article “False Flag,” which appeared today in Slate. I won’t spoil it here, but rest assured that it’s a wild ride, complete with excursions into newspaper archives, government documents, and the world of vexillology, or flag studies. It’s probably my most surprising discovery in a lifetime of looking into unlikely subjects, and I have a hunch that there might be even more to come. I hope you’ll check it out.