Who invented the first flagpole?

Answer 1

The usage of flags spread from India and China, where they were almost certainly invented, to neighboring Burma, Siam, and southeastern Asia.

The Persians used Derafsh Kaviani as the flag, at the time of Achaemenian dynasty at 550-330 B.C. Afterwards it was used in different look by the late Sassanid era (224-651). It was also representative of the Sassanid state-Ērānshāhr, the "Kingdom of Iran"-and may so be considered to have been the first "national flag" of Iran.

Originally, the standards of the Roman legions were not flags, but symbols such as the eagle of Augustus Caesar's Xth legion; this graphic of the eagle would be placed on a staff for the standard-bearer to hold up during battle. But a military unit from Dacia had for a standard a dragon with a flexible tail which would move in the wind; the legions copied this, and eventually all the legions had physically flexible standards-the modern-day flag.

During the Middle Ages, flags were used for a variety of purposes including: identification of members of nobility, guilds, cities, religious worship, and for use during battles. In battle, flags were used by military companies for identification on the field and relaying of strategic instructions. Though not always, flags could identify individual leaders: in Europe, monarchs andknights; in Japan, the samurai; in China, the generals under the imperial army; and in Mexico, the Aztec alliances.

From the era of sailing vessels onwards, it has been customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to carry flags designating their nationality; these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals; see, International maritime signal flags.

As European knights were replaced by centralized armies, flags became the means to identify not just nationalities but also individual military units. Flags became objects to be captured or defended. Eventually these flags posed too much of a practical danger to those carrying them, and by World War I these were withdrawn from the battlefields, and have since been used only at ceremonial occasions.