The day
is recognized as a national holiday.

For banners in general see FLAG.

BANNISTER, CHARLES (1738-1804), English actor and singer, was born in
Gloucestershire, and after some amateur and provincial experience made his
first London appearance in 1762 as Will in _The Orators_ at the Haymarket.
Gifted with a fine bass voice, Bannister acquired a reputation as a singer
at Ranelagh and elsewhere, as well as an actor, and was received with such
favour that Garrick engaged him for Drury Lane. He died on the 26th of
October 1804.

His son JOHN BANNISTER (1760-1836), born at Deptford on the 12th of May
1760, first studied to be a painter, but soon took to the stage. His first
formal appearance was at the Haymarket in 1778 as Dick in _The Apprentice_.
The same year at Drury Lane he played in James Miller's version of
Voltaire's _Mahomet_ the part of Zaphna, which he had studied under
Garrick. The Palmira of the cast was Mrs Robinson ("Perdita"). Bannister
was the best low comedian of his day. As manager of Drury Lane (1802) he
was no less successful. He retired in 1815 and died on the 7th of November
1836. He never gave up his taste for painting, and Gainsborough, Morland
and Rowlandson were among his friends.

See Adolphus's _Memoirs of John Bannister_ (2 vols., 1838).

BANNOCK (adapted from the Gaelic, and apparently connected with Lat.
_panis_, bread), the term used in Scotland and the north of England for a
large, flattish, round sort of bun or cake, usually made of barley-meal,
but also of wheat, and sometimes with currants.

BANNOCK, the name of a county in the south-east of the state of Idaho,
U.S.A., and of a river in the same state, which runs northward in Oneida
county into the Snake or Lewis river. It is taken from that of the Bannock
Indians (see BANATE), a corruption of the native _Panaiti_.

BANNOCKBURN, a town of Stirlingshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 2444. It is
situated on the "burn" from which its name is derived, the Bannock (Gaelic,
_ban oc_, "white, shining stream"), a right-hand affluent of the Forth,
which was once a considerable river. The town lies 2-1/4 m. S.S.E. of
Stirling by the Caledonian railway, and now has thriving manufactures of
woollens (chiefly tweeds, carpets and tartans) and leather, though at the
beginning of the 19th century it was only a village. The Bore Stone, in
which Bruce planted his standard before the battle in which he defeated
Edward II. in 1314 (see below), is preser