Flag of Falcón state
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The flag of Falcón state, one of the 23 states of Venezuela, is a blue flag with a sun and a moon depicted. It has a red ribbon on top, with the words 'MUERA LA TIRANIA VIVA LA LIBERTAD' ("Death to Tyranny, Long Live Liberty") in white letters.
2006 adoption of new state flag
[edit]The current state flag was adopted in 2006. The change of state flag was done in connection with the bicentennial celebrations of the landing of Francisco de Miranda at La Vela de Coro in 1806.[1] On August 3, 2006 governor Jesús Montilla hoisted the new flag at the Monument to the Venezuelan Federation ('Paredón') in the state capital Coro.[1] The unveiling followed the passage in the Falcón State Legislative Council of a legislation to change the state flag on August 1, 2006.[1] The flag design is based on a naval flag used by Miranda on the voyage of his war ship Leander.[1]
Miranda's naval flag and symbolism
[edit]For a long time, the prevailing understanding in Venezuela was that Leander had carried the yellow-blue-red tricolour flag as its naval flag.[2] This position had been corroborated from testimonies of participants in Miranda's 1806 mission.[2] But in the 1910s Dr. Manuel Segundo Sánchez, director of National Library of Caracas, challenged the notion that tricolour had been flown as the naval flag of Leander.[2] At the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Sanchez had uncovered correspondence of the Spanish colonial authorities which included a facsimile drawing of a naval flag used by Miranda in 1806.[2] It was a blue banner with a sun and a moon - in Sanchez's interpretation the blue colour would represent both sky and sea, whilst the rising sun would represent the rising American liberty and the full moon the declining Spanish empire.[2] Above the flag there was a red pennant with the words 'MVERA LA TIRANIA Y VIVA LA &&&' - for Sanchez it is obvious that "&&&" would have represented the word 'libertad' ("Liberty")[2]