July 4 is coming up again, and as we deck out our homes in red, white, and blue, we might want to sit down and ponder for a little bit about this flag that is so iconic to all Americans. Getting a nice flag to fly is easy: you can grab a top-notch flag by contacting allegiance high-quality American flags. There are a few flags out there that were not so easy to obtain.
Let us examine some flags that took a whole lot of effort to fly.
The Biggest Flag You Can Buy (…or Rent)
The “Superflag” is so big that it has a website devoted to documenting its travels. This massive flag is the kind of thing that you wonder to yourself, “Do you think the astronauts can see this from space?”
The biggest Superflag is a sizable 255 feet by 505 feet (78m x 154m). Here are some Superflag Facts:
- The first time the Superflag flew, it was draped over the Hoover Dam in 1996 to commemorate the Olympic Torch Relay toward the Atlanta Summer Olympics. This event was the one that landed the flag into the Guinness Book of World’s Records as the “World’s Largest Flag Flown.” Before this, in 1994 and 1995, it was merely “The World’s Largest Flag.”
- Superflag took the world record away from the comparatively puny Brazilian national flag, a 229′ 8″ by 328′ 1′ giant flag hung over Brasilia.
- It weighs approximately 3,000 pounds (1.36 tons)
- The stripes are around 20 feet wide
- The stars measure around 16 feet, from point-to-point
- Before the Sierra Nevada winds took it, the massive flag flew about an hour, snapping four of the enormous steel cables that secured it, putting a vast 100′ long gash in ‘Ol Glory.
This triumph of American blood, sweat, and tears can be rented to fly at your event. If you can’t accommodate the majestic dimensions of the Superflag, two slightly smaller flags are available for rent.
To rent the original Superflag, you must have at least 600 volunteers available to wrestle the monstrous behemoth down for your 4th of July festivities. If you can wrangle up 265 volunteers (or 150…), you can rent the medium or small versions of Superflag.
Since its Hoover Dam debut, Superflag has traveled worldwide for many events, including a Super Bowl, The Washington Monument, the World Series.
The Human Flag
The Largest Human Flag ever assembled was a recreation of the Indian national flag by over 43,000 participants in Chennai, India, on December 7, 2014. Since we dropped the ball on the largest human flag, let’s discuss “The Human Flag.”
The “Human Flag” is a gymnastic bar hold that requires extraordinary athletic prowess to perform. To complete The Human Flag, a straight line is formed by the arms and the body, hoisting the entire body’s weight parallel to the ground, as the performer supports him/herself on a vertical bar. This marvelous feat requires a fantastic amount of upper body strength.
For his extraordinary strength, Bruce Lee invented a hold called the “Dragon Flag”, where the back is held parallel to the ground instead of to the side.
Most Expensive Flag That Isn’t A Flag
The painting “Flag” (encaustic, 1954-55) by Georgia artist Jasper Johns was painted two years after the then 24-year-old was discharged from the US Army. It launched Johns into superstardom, and he has since been considered one of the quintessential American artists of the 20th century.
Of “Flag,” Johns said that he dreamed of painting an American flag, and the following day he bought the materials to paint it and began. After its monumental success, Johns pointed out, “Using this design took care of a great deal for me because I didn’t have to design it.”
Johns sold “Flag” for an undisclosed amount to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1998. In 2010, it became the most expensive painting ever by a living artist when hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen purchased it for $110 million. He then, in turn, sold it for a sizable loss at Sotheby’s in NYC in 2014 for $36 million.
