I must have learned some facts about the US flag in American History class when I was in high school. Ever since I learned that Betsy Ross did not really sew the first flag, however, I’ve doubted what I learned then, even though I don’t remember it now. So, with Flag Day almost upon us I thought it would be interesting to look up some things about our flag.
Even without history class, most of us would probably think of the first US flag as having 13 stars and 13 stripes. But, did you know that when the next two states joined the union (Vermont and Kentucky), the flag was changed to 15 stars and 15 stripes? A few years later they wised up and added more stars for new states but went back to the original 13 stripes. Imagine if today’s flag had 50 stripes! Flag design was not standardized for a long time so there were variations in how the stars were displayed as the number continued to grow. Check out some of these different flag designs. It was the 15-star/15-stripe flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem which would later be put to music and become the National Anthem.
The first flag day was established in 1916 when President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation establishing June 14 as the date. That date was chosen because the first American flag was introduced by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. In 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.
Four of the flags above were photographed in Washington DC. The fifth one was photographed at Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston, SC.