The history of the United States flag and its meaning

Jpnwebsite
3 min readAug 26, 2022

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The flag of the United States of America is the national flag of the United States of America whose pattern consists of 13 horizontal red and white stripes representing the first 13 colonies when the United States became independent, and a blue rectangle with 50 white stars in it, representing the 50 states in the United States.

Before as it is now, the flag of the United States has undergone many changes. When the American Revolution began, the first unofficial national flag was widely used, known as the Grand Union Flag, with alternating red-and-white stripes and the Union Jack emblem in the upper left corner, in a blue square. The Grand Union flag was often flown on military ships at that time.

Then the first official national flag approved by the Continental Congress in 1777 was a flag with 13 stars arranged in a circle inside a blue square, and the same number of red and white stripes.

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“It was decided that the flag of the United States of America be thirteen stripes, alternating red and white; that the union becomes thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing the new constellation,” reads the agreement, quoted on the Britannica website, October 22, 2021.

Meanwhile the star layout is left unregulated. The 13 stars represent the first 13 US states, namely Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia.

The flag’s designer, most likely Congressman Francis Hopkinson, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence from Philadelphia, is said to have arranged the stars in a ring to symbolize the new constellation.

Today, the circular star pattern is known as the Betsy Ross Flag. However, there is a widely circulated story that Betsy Ross was the one who created such a flag design in the first place, hence the name is known as the Betsy Ross Flag.

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The flag of the United States changed after Congress enacted the second Flag Resolution, which mandated that two stars be added to the flag when two states had just joined America, Vermont (1791) and Kentucky (1792).

Then, in 1818, Congress decreed that the flag must have a fixed number of stripes: 13, while the number of stars must match the number of states, and each new star must be added by July 4 after state receipts.

Along the way, the number of stars on the United States flag continued to grow as the states joined the United States. In 1959, Hawaii became the last territory to become a United States state and was represented by a new star on the flag.

Finally, from 1960 to the present, the flag of the United States has 50 white stars representing the 50 states within a blue rectangle, and 13 red-and-white stripes. In total, from 1777 to the present, the United States of America has changed its flag pattern 27 times.

There is no official meaning or philosophy or symbolism to the colors of the US flag. However, Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, suggested the following meaning: “White signifies purity and innocence. Red signifies resilience and courage. Blue signifies vigilance, perseverance and justice.”

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