The Stars and Stripes at 250

A new constellation

The Continental Congress adopted the flag in a single sentence. It did not say how the stars should be arranged, how many points they should have or what the colors meant, so early flags came in many patterns, from circles of stars to rows and scattered designs.

Who designed it is still debated. Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey signer of the Declaration of Independence, later asked Congress to pay him for his flag design work. Tradition credits the Philadelphia upholsterer Betsy Ross with sewing the first flag, a story her grandson William Canby made public in 1870. Historians have not settled the question, and the flag belongs to everyone who has served under it.

The colors had no official meaning in 1777. When Congress approved the Great Seal in 1782, its secretary, Charles Thomson, explained that white signified purity and innocence, red hardiness and valor, and blue vigilance, perseverance and justice. Americans have read those meanings into the flag ever since.

250 years in the life of the flag

1. June 14, 1777The Second Continental Congress adopts the Stars and Stripes: thirteen stripes and thirteen stars.
2. July 4, 1777Philadelphia celebrates the first anniversary of independence with ships dressed in colors, a 13-gun salute, ringing bells, bonfires and fireworks. The American way of celebrating the Fourth begins.
3. 1795Under the Flag Act of 1794, the flag grows to fifteen stars and fifteen stripes after Vermont and Kentucky join the Union.
4. September 1814A fifteen-star garrison flag sewn by Mary Pickersgill flies over Fort McHenry after the British bombardment of Baltimore. Francis Scott Key writes the poem that becomes “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
5. 1818Congress returns the flag to thirteen stripes and adds one star for each new state, effective on the Fourth of July after the state joins.
6. 1820s–1830sSea captain William Driver of Salem, Massachusetts, names his ship’s flag “Old Glory,” and the nickname spreads across the nation.
7. 1892Francis Bellamy writes the Pledge of Allegiance for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage.
8. 1916President Woodrow Wilson proclaims June 14 as Flag Day.
9. 1931“The Star-Spangled Banner” becomes the national anthem.
10. 1942Congress adopts the U.S. Flag Code, setting out how the flag should be displayed and respected.
11. February 23, 1945Marines raise the flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima, one of the most famous photographs in American history.
12. 1949President Harry S. Truman signs the law making June 14 National Flag Day.
13. July 4, 1960The 50-star flag becomes official after Hawaii joins the Union. Its design began as a high school project by Robert G. Heft of Ohio.
14. July 20, 1969Apollo 11 astronauts plant the flag on the Moon.
15. June 14, 2027The Stars and Stripes turns 250.