Bald eagle 1782, the Continental Congress adopted the design for the Great Seal of the United States depicting a bald eagle grasping 13 arrows and an olive branch with its talons. The bald eagle appears on most official seals of the U.S. government, including the presidential seal, the presidential flag, and in the logos of many U.S. federal agencies. Between 1916 and 1945, the presidential flag (but not the seal) showed an eagle facing to its left (the viewer's right), which gave rise to the urban legend that the flag is changed to have the eagle face towards the olive branch in
Great Seal of the Irish Free State Full Powers, and not always on the latter. Lesser seals were used on lesser documents: The first use of the External Great Seal was not until 1937, for ratifying the Montreux Convention Regarding the Abolition of the Capitulations in Egypt. Successive governments minimised the use of monarch and the External Great Seal. The state typically conducted bilateral agreements at inter-government level rather than the nominally more prestigious head-of-state level, so that the Minister for External Affairs would use the internal Great Seal for any documents. After signing some multilateral treaties that would have required the External Great Seal for ratification,