How It's Used

“When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.”

—Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States.

"Howitzers positioned across Constitution Avenue from the Capitol boomed Tuesday as Army artillery crews rehearsed for the 21-gun salute that will herald the arrival Wednesday of Ronald Reagan's body to the Capitol Rotunda, where he will lie before the first state funeral in Washington in 31 years."

—David Stout and Carl Hulse, "Washington, Accustomed to Ceremony, Focuses on Logistics for a Rare State Funeral," The New York Times, June 9, 2004.

“'Nyet! Nyet!' That's what a Russian bodyguard told a reporter for McClatchy newspapers when the latter asked the former to comment on an incident that took place on the Admiral Chabanenko, a Russian destroyer carrying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, which had docked off the Venezuelan coast last week. Following the pomp, circumstance, and 21-gun salute that are mandatory at such meetings, there had, it seems, been a bit of a misunderstanding. As Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez boarded the vessel, his beefy bodyguards had tried to follow him up the gangplank. They were stopped, however, by their equally beefy Russian counterparts. The Venezuelans, who presumably spoke no Russian, tried to push their way through. The Russians, who presumably spoke no Spanish, fought back.”

—Anne Applebaum, “Moscow's Empire of Dust: For all Russia's imperial ambitions, its thuggish political system is totally unattractive,” Slate, December 1, 2008.

Also Known As (AKA)

Twenty-One Gun Salute

Links

Related on eAlmanac
Flags at Half-Mast

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on "21-Gun Salutes"