Ah, yes, Flag Day — the holiday the Post has dubbed as “often, even to those who care about flags, an anticlimactic event” — is upon us. There’s not a whole lot to Flag Day, although its Wikipedia entry does feature this interesting tale about Teddy Roosevelt’s serious affinity for the holiday:

On June 14, [1908,] Theodore Roosevelt was dining outside of Philadelphia, when he noticed a man wiping his nose with what he thought was the American Flag. In outrage, Roosevelt picked up a small wooden rod and began to whip the man for “defacing the symbol of America”. After about five or six strong whacks, he noticed that the man was not wiping his nose with a flag, but with a blue hankerchief with white stars. Upon realization of this, he apologized to the man, but hit him once more for making him “riled up with national pride.”

Uh, happy Flag Day! Hopefully, you can enjoy robert photo‘s nighttime take of the flags on the National Mall without resorting to beating people with wooden rods.