May 10, 1970
As part of the nationwide protests of the invasion of Cambodia that began on May 1, 1970, following President Richard Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War the day before, a college student hung an American flag upside down, with peace symbols attached. He was arrested and convicted under the State of Washington’s “improper use” clause of its flag statute law. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, in Spence v. Washington, on June 25, 1974.
