Since this is a music site and the topic is yankees.  It might be appropriate to discuss what many claim to be the origins of the song: Yankee Doodle Dandy. Although no one knows for absolute fact how it all transpired, in the 1600's and early 1700's there were, in England, men who adopted feminine mannerisms and dressed lavishly.  They were, at that time, referred to as fops. By the middle of the 18th century that had adopted the wearing of powdered wigs with very large tubular curls called "macaroni wigs" and were referred to as dandies.  This is a large part of the back story to the song.

The British, always fond of ridiculing the colonial militias created and sang a version of an English folk tune using the words:

Yankee Doodle went to town

Riding on a pony;

He stuck a feather in his hat,

And called it macaroni

This implied that the colonial soldiers were nothing more than effeminate rubes who thought that if they put a feather in their hats, they were the height of fashion.  The colonial soldiers were less than amused by the tune.

One account indicates that after one of the early encounters leading up to the revolutionary war, some captured British solders were forced to dance to the tune until they were so tired they could no longer stand. At which point a colonial soldier asked them, "How do you like that song now?"  (I like to think of it in Clint Eastwood's voice.) In any event the song that was used to ridicule the colonial soldiers was adopted by them as their theme song. 

Interesting how insults can backfire.