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**The United States Flag**

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Betsy Ross showing the United States flag\
to George Washington and others.

The flag of the United States is one of the oldest national standards in
the world. General George Washington first raised the Continental Army
flag in 1776, a red-and-white striped flag with the British Union Jack
where we now have stars.

Several flag designs with 13 stripes were used in 1776 and 1777, until
Congress established an official design on June 14, 1777 --- now
observed as Flag Day. The act stated, "That the Flag of the thirteen
United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, that the
union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new
constellation." Washington explained it this way: "We take the stars
from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white
stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white
stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty."

**The First Flag**

No records confirm who designed the original Stars and Stripes, but
historians believe Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, probably modified the unofficial
Continental flag into the design we now have.

The State Navy Board of Pennsylvania, on May 29, 1777, commissioned
Betsy Ross to sew flags for Navy vessels. Legend credits Ross with
having sewn the first flag to meet the specifications outlined by
Congress, while changing the stars from six points to five to speed her
work.

The flag was first carried in battle at Brandywine, Pa., in September
1777. It first flew over foreign territory in early 1778, at Nassau,
Bahama Islands, where Americans captured a fort from the British.

After Vermont and Kentucky became states in the 1790s, Congress approved
adding two more stars and two more stripes to the group that represented
the original 13 colonies, now states. This was the Star Spangled Banner"
of which Francis Scott Key wrote in 1814.

**1818 Law Sets Final Form**

As other states entered the Union, it became obvious that stripes could
not be added continually, so in 1818 Congress reestablished the
13-stripe flag for the original 13 colonies and allowed for additional
stars for new states.

The law specified that stripes should be horizontal, alternately red and
white, and the union, or canton, should display 20 stars for the states
then in the union. But it did not specify color shades or arrangement of
the stars, and wide variation persisted. During the Civil War, gold
stars were more common than white and the stars sometimes appeared in a
circle.

The first time the Stars and Stripes flew in a Flag Day celebration was
in Hartford, Conn., 1861, the first summer of the Civil War. In the late
1800s, schools held Flag Day programs to contribute to the
Americanization of immigrant children, and the observance caught on with
individual communities. As a patriotic custom, the Stars and Stripes
still flies in front of schools when classes are in session.

In 1916, the president proclaimed a nationwide observance of Flag Day,
but it was not until 1949 that Congress voted for Flag Day to be a
permanent holiday. When the 49th and 50th stars were added in 1959 and
1960, the standards of design became even more precise. The regulated
design calls for seven red and six white stripes, with the red stripes
at top and bottom. The union of navy blue fills the upper left quarter
from the top to the lower edge of the fourth red stripe. The stars have
one point up and are in nine horizontal rows. The odd-numbered rows have
six stars. The even-numbered rows have five stars, centered diagonally
between the stars in the longer rows.