Hey listeners. A few episodes ago, a listener sent in a question about flags, wanting to know more about their history.

And I began researching, but to be honest, I didn't find any big revelations.

Flags were first used in warfare, and they were more signaling devices than anything else.

Battles can be confusing, and flags and banners are a way to signal which troops are where.

Over time, flags got more detailed and more diverse.

If you look at a field of battle during the Middle Ages, you could see dozens of different banners,

not only for the king, but for knights and lords.

And things got even more complicated when towns and city states felt that they should have flags.

And eventually, countries adopted they should have flags. And eventually,

countries adopted their own specific flags. Denmark was supposedly the first to do this,

anytime from 1,200s to 1400s, depending on which story you want to go with. And at that point,

flags became nationalist symbols, not just military sticky notes. Flying a certain flag meant you claimed allegiance to a specific country. Planting a flag meant claiming ground for that

same country. And that's why you will never see an American flag at, say, Buckingham Palace,

but you will see one at the American Embassy in London.

But there is one place in the U.S. that flies the British flag every day, and it's not an embassy.

It's a national park on San Juan Island in Washington State.

That park commemorates a war most of you have never heard of.

A war between America and Britain that began in 1859, lasted 12 years, involved a bunch of sheep,

but whose only casualty was a single pig.

This is Fibernation, and I'm your host, Alison Koreski.

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