Monday links

Dorothy Parker's birthday: quotes, poems, a brief bio, and the weird journey of her ashes

Five Ancient Athletes Who Dominated the Olympics Thousands of Years Ago, and The United States' First Trip to the Olympics.

In Jerusalem, the World's Only Surviving Tattoo Shop For Medieval Pilgrims.

Excellent supercut of technology breaking down, then being beaten until it works again.

The Rules About How to Address the U.S. Flag Came About Because No One Wanted to Look Like a Nazi.

This Incredible Wooden Book Is a Series of Puzzles That Have to Be Solved to Continue Reading.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include bizarre Victorian inventions, hackers and lock picking, missing counterfeit money, and Australian weird wildlife.

June 1960 Saturday Evening Post: Seamstresses rush to complete the new 50-star flag

Stars in their eyes: Seamstresses rush to complete the new 50-star flag in 1960.
(Photo by Larry Keighley, © SEPS)

From the June 4, 1960 issue of the Saturday Evening Post (wiki):

One more month and the proud new 50-star flags you see being sewn together by the busy Betsy Rosses at left will become officially ensigns of the United States. It has been a hard two years on manufacturers such as the Dettra Flag Company of Oaks, Pennsylvania.

After 47 years of an unchanging 48-star design, two newcomer states forced the rearrangement of the flag’s union, or starred blue field, twice within a year. On the double change-over, Dettra lost about $150,000 in canceled orders and unsalable inventory. The short-lived 49-star flag started the biggest boom the flag business had ever known. This boom collapsed utterly when Hawaii’s admission to the Union was voted by Congress in March 1959.

However, when President Eisenhower announced on August 21 which 50-star design was to be used, the boom revived, and by the Fourth of July Dettra will have made 2 million bright new banners — twice as many as it ever made before in a single year, and about 40 percent of the year’s total for the country.

Related: Saturday Evening Post's Fourth of July Covers Throughout the Decades.