Sat, 28 Sep 2024 09:17:51 EDT
False Flag
The term false flag entered English in the 16th century. At the time, the word flag was new. Formerly, there was no general word for a piece of cloth that functioned as a standard, ensign, or signal.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of false flag was figurative. In the mid-1550s an anti-Catholic tract accused the Catholic church of flying a false flag to conceal the church’s true nature. In the late 17th century, in another anti-Catholic tract, George Halley compared the Catholic church to pirates that fly a false flag to conceal their true intent.
The OED claims that the first known description of ships literally flying a false flag appeared in an article in Washington D.C.’s Daily National Intelligencer in 1824.
The same source claims that the first known use of false flag operation dates to 1982.