Got one.

[Dennis27]

I got one about the bird. Back when the French and English were always fighting (like hundereds of years ago) two of the generals were trading blows with one another... One of them mentioned that they were going to cut the bow fingers off the enemys..in any case to make a long story short the French did not defeat the English or vice versa and when the loosing army was retreating they victorious army stuck their middle fingers up to show them that they did not get their bow fingers and hence the middle finger. I saw that on History Channel... I think

[Nibblet99]

I got one about the bird. Back when the French and English were always fighting (like hundereds of years ago) two of the generals were trading blows with one another... One of them mentioned that they were going to cut the bow fingers off the enemys..in any case to make a long story short the French did not defeat the English or vice versa and when the loosing army was retreating they victorious army stuck their middle fingers up to show them that they did not get their bow fingers and hence the middle finger. I saw that on History Channel... I think

Close... it has no relation to "Flippin the bird" (a useful method of swearing, which is pretty much internationally recognised), but us brits (sometimes) swear with both index and middle fingers in a V shape. and it was because the french feared our longbow men, that when they caught any of them, they chopped those fingers off. (I don't believe we did that to the french), so on the battlefield whenever we won, our longbow men gave them the V signs.