Re: [OT] Happy Birthday To Oz (was HAPPY NEW YEAR!)

>Absender: jon@gzg.com
> >>On Tue, 02 January 2001, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> >>
> >>> Ditto to those in Oz, but also, BTW, a Happy 200th Birthday to 
> >>> the United Kingdom.....  ;-)
> >> James VI of Scotland became James I of England, thus uniting the 
> >> crowns, in 1603. But it wasn't until 1707 that the Act of Union > 
>> made it "official".
> >>So what happened in 1801???
> >"the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented
> >in 1801, with the adoption of the name the United Kingdom of Great > 
> Britain and Ireland".  
> Yep, that's about it - January 1801 was also apparently the date 
> that the Union Jack (more correctly the Union Flag in non-naval 
> useage) was designed and adopted.

The Union Jack in its present form, that is. It now has red stripes in	
the diagonal lines. Before that, the diagonal lines were just white. 
The original Union Jack was created at the time of the Union with
Scotland 
and was a combination of the English Flag (Red St.George's Cross on 
white field) with the Scottish one (White diagonal St Andrew's Cross on 
blue). 

There was an Irish flag of a red diagonal "St.Patrick's cross" on a 
white field. This was combined with the existing Union Jack to give the 
present flag.

Greetings
Karl Heinz