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Show I History of U.S. flag BOUNTIFUL The true history of the Stars and Stripes and the U.S flag has become so cluttered by myth and tradition that the facts are difficult and in some cases impossible to establish. For example, it is not certain who designed the Stars and Stripes, who made the first such flag, or even whether it ever flew in Navy sea fights or land batdes of the American Revolution. The Stars and Stripes originated as the result of a resolution offered by the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress Con-gress at Philadelphia and adopted on June 14, 1777. Congress gave no hints as to the designer of the flag, no instructions as to the arrangement ar-rangement of the stars and no information on its appropriate uses. Historians have been unable to find the original flag law. The resolution establishing the flag was not even published until Sept. 2, 1777. Despite repeated requests, the government did not get the flags until 1783, after the Revolutionary War was over. And there is no certainty that they were the Stars and Stripes. The flag of 1777 was used until 1795 and then on the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union, Congress passed and President George Washington signed an act that after May 1, 1795, the flag should have 15 stripes, alternate red and white and 15 white stars on a blue field on the Union. When new states were admitted, it became evident that the flag would become burdened with stripes. Congress thereupon ordered that after July 4, 1818, the flag should have 13 stripes, symbolizing the 13 original states; that the union have 20 stars, and that whenever a new state was admitted a new star should be added on the Fourth of July following admission. No law designates the permanent arrangement of the stars. However, since 1912 when a new state has been admitted, the new design has been announced by executive order. No star is specifically identified with any state. The 50-star flag of the United States was raised for the first time officially at 12:01 a.m. on July 4, 1960 at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Md. The 50th star had been added for Hawaii, a year earlier the 49th, for Alaska. Before that, no star had been added since 1912, when New Mexico and Arizona were admitted ad-mitted to the Union. No one knows for a certainty who designed the flag. Francis Hopkinson, designer of a naval flag, declared he also had designed the flag and in 1781 asked Congress to reimburse him for his services. ser-vices. Congress did not do so. The widely publicized legend that Betsy Ross made the first Stars and Stripes in June 1776, at the request of a committee composed of George Washington, Robert Morris and an uncle, George Ross, was first made public in 1870, by a grandson of Mrs. Ross. Historians have been unable to find a historical record of such a meeting or committee. |