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.
Van Johnson, film, television and stage star, dies at 92. (CNN) -- Van Johnson, whose boyish looks and earnest manner made him a Hollywood heartthrob in the 1940s and '50s, died Friday in an assisted-care facility, a friend told CNN. Van Johnson and Judy Garland in In the Good Old Summertime, one of many musicals in his lengthy career. Johnson, 92, died around 11 a.m. of natural causes at the Tappan Zee Manor in Nyack, New York, where he had lived for seven years, said Wendy Bleiweiss.