About Flag of United States of America
The United States flag – USA flag – American flag is a flag with 13 alternating stripes 7 red and 6 white, with 50 white stars in a blue field.
The used colors in the flag are blue, red, and white. The 50 stars stand for the 50 states of the union, and the 13 stripes stand for the original 13 states. The flag’s width-to-length ratio is 10 to 19. The Flag of the United States was adopted in 1960. The first use of the current flag design was in 1818. The last change to the current United States flag design was in 1960.
On January 1, 1776, at Prospect Hill in Charlestown (now Somerville), Massachusetts, the first unofficial American national flag—known as the Continental Colours (or, occasionally, as the Grand Union Flag, the Cambridge Flag, the Somerville Flag, or the Union Flag)—was raised at the request of General George Washington, whose headquarters were nearby.
The Sons of Liberty banner, which was another well-known early flag, featured just nine red and white stripes. Many American colonial banners from the 18th century included variations of the “Don’t Tread on Me” coiled-rattlesnake flag, including some flown by military troops during the Revolutionary War. For instance, the Virginia revolutionary Patrick Henry’s renowned phrases “Liberty or Death” were featured in the version carried by the Minutemen of Culpeper County, Virginia, in addition to the rattlesnake and the motto “Don’t Tread on Me.”
The Stars and Stripes was the first recognized national flag, and the Continental Congress officially adopted it on June 14, 1777. In its entirety, the first Flag Resolution stated: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States consists of thirteen stripes, alternately red and white; that the union consists of thirteen stars, white in a field of blue, indicating a new constellation.” The arrangement of the stars was left up to the flag maker, who employed a variety of patterns. Congressman Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Philadelphia, was most likely the one who designed the flag. He may have had in mind a ring of stars to represent the brand-new constellation.
Even though the frequently repeated myth that Betsy Ross created the original Stars and Stripes and invented the ring pattern is untrue, that pattern is commonly referred to as the “Betsy Ross flag.”
The second Flag Resolution, which required that new stars and stripes be added to the flag when new states were admitted to the Union, was passed by Congress on May 1, 1795, and thus resulted in a change to the Stars and Stripes. The first two new states were Kentucky and Vermont in 1791. (1792). (One of these flags was the 1,260 square foot (117 square meters) “Star-Spangled Banner” fashioned by Mary Pickersgill, which Francis Scott Key witnessed at Fort McHenry in September 1814 and was the inspiration for the patriotic song that subsequently served as the lyrics to the national anthem.)
Following the admission of five more states, Congress passed the third and final Flag Resolution in 1818, mandating that the number of stripes remains at 13, the number of stars always correspond to the number of states and that any new star is added to the fourth of July after a state’s admission. Since then, this has been the system. There were a total of 27 variations of the flag between 1777 and 1960 (after Hawaii was included in 1959), with 25 of those variations having simply changes to the stars. The proportions and relative sizes of the flag’s components were initially established by President William Howard Taft on October 29, 1912; the precise colorations were specified in 1934.
The flag’s colors are not given any official interpretation or symbolism. However, when describing the proposed Great Seal of the United States, Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, offered the following interpretation of its meaning: “White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valor, and Blue…signifies vigilance [sic], perseverance [sic], & justice.” The Stars and Stripes have long been a symbol of patriotism, like many other national flags.
Millions of students have repeated the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag at the beginning of every school day since 1892, and the national anthem’s lyrics also mention the flag. Some veterans’ and patriotic groups put pressure on lawmakers to pass laws or a constitutional amendment outlawing flag desecration after the U.S. Supreme Court determined in 1989 that all flag desecration laws were unconstitutional. On the basis that it would violate the First Amendment freedom of expression, which is protected by the Constitution, such legislation has received opposition.
The Stars and Bars, the Confederate States of America’s first flag, was first used on March 5, 1861, during the American Civil War. The first Confederate Battle Flag has also flown shortly after. Over the following two years, the Stars and Bars’ design changed. The Confederacy adopted its first official national flag, known as the Stainless Banner, on May 1st, 1863.
On March 4, 1865, a little more than a month before the war came to an end, a variation of that design was approved. Many Southern organizations opposed the practice of flying the Confederate Battle Flag on public structures, including some state capitols, throughout the second half of the 20th century. The flag, according to supporters of the tradition, served as a reminder of Southern ancestry and military devotion, whilst opponents saw it as a representation of racism and slavery that wasn’t fit for official use.
