Color Fast Flags Blog — American flag history

Even in war there are traditions.  One of the most time-honored - and pervasive throughout the world - is for surrendering armies to wave white flags. The tradition is thought to have originated with the reign of the Eastern Han dynasty in China over 2000 years ago.  The practice of using a white flag to surrender seems to have developed independently in the Roman Empire at about the same time.  The Roman writer Cornelius Tacitus wrote of a white flag of surrender in his Histories, first published in 109.  He cites the Second Battle of Cremona, fought between the Vitelliand...