In the case of Scotland, use of a blue background for the Saint Andrew's Cross is said to date from at least the 15th century, with the first certain illustration of a flag depicting such appearing in Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount 's Register of Scottish Arms, circa 1542.
Dennis Johnson, a brilliant defensive player who helped propel the Seattle SuperSonics and the to N.B.A. championships, died yesterday in Austin, Tex. He was 52. The cause was a heart attack, the National Basketball Association said.
Dennis Weaver who played stiff-legged Chester on Gunsmoke and the cowboy cop hero in McCloud, has died. He was 81. Publicist Julian Myers said Weaver died of complications from cancer on Feb. 24, 2006 at his home in Ridgway, in southwestern Colorado, A struggling actor in Hollywood in 1955, Weaver was earning $60 a week delivering flowers when he was offered $300 a week for a role in a new CBS television series, Gunsmoke..