History of the American Flag

The American Flag symbolizes pride, strength, courage, inspiration, and unity. It has served the American people for more than 200 years. This great icon represents our extraordinary past and the history of our great nation and will always continue to boldly fly in this great country that I am so blessed to live in.

With so much history in our Nation's past and my love for the American flag, I wanted to share with you where our flag has come from and the glorious flag that it is today! Here are some facts that you probably already know but I thought you might enjoy.

On January 1, 1776, the Continental Army was reorganized placing American forces under George Washington. At this time, the Continental Army was under siege to Boston having been taken over by the British Army. George Washington ordered the Grand Union flag be raised above his base at Prospect Hill. The flag had 13 alternate red and white stripes and the British Union in the upper left hand corner.

May 1776, Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag.

June 14, 1777, Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act; establishing an official flag for the new nation: " Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation."

Between 1777 and 1960, Congress passed several acts allowing changes to the shape, design, and arrangement of the flag and for additional stars and stripes to be added each time a new state was admitted.

January 13, 1794 - passed an Act that provided for 15 stripes and 15 stars after May 1795.

April 4, 1818 - passed an Act that was signed by President Monroe providing for 13 stripes and one star for each state and they were to be added to the flag on the 4th of July following the admission of each new state.

June 24, 1912 - Executive Order of President Taft established proportions of the flag and provided for arrangement of the stars in six horizontal rows of eight each, a single point of each star to be upward.

January 3, 1959 - Executive Order of President Eisenhower provided for the arrangement of the stars in seven rows of seven stars each, staggered horizontally and vertically.

August 21, 1959 - Executive Order of President Eisenhower provided for the arrangement of the stars in nine rows of stars staggered horizontally and eleven rows of stars staggered vertically.

The stripes represent the original 13 colonies, the stars represent the 50 states of the Union. The colors of the flag are also symbolic: Red - Hardiness and Valor, White - Purity and Innocence, and Blue - Vigilance, Perseverance, and Justice.

The American flag represents the people of the United States of America. It symbolizes the great men and women that have fought for our country and whom continue to fight for our freedom. The American flag should be flown proudly!

Although our country may not always make the right decisions and many American's and other nationalities believe that we shouldn't be as involved in other affairs, we are still American's and live in the greatest country in the world. We have freedom's like no other country!

With this, I believe that there are too many people in America that have little or no respect for our American flag and they fail to understand or try to understand what we have and what our great flag symbolizes.

I am not from a military family and I was not raised in a military family but both of my grandfather's fought in WWII, my dad was drafted and sent to Vietnam, and my younger brother joined the Airf Force for 4 years and was sent to Desert Storm.

My grandparent's and dad were all injured in war and saw many bad things happen. Even though they didn't want to be there; they loved our country, the American people, and the freedom's that we have so they were willing to fight so that we could continue to have what we have today.  

Over the years I would listen to them and often heard how much they loved our flag and what it stood for. My dad still loves the flag and continues to fly it proudly.

I wish that more people would try to understand what the true meaning of our flag is and what it represents. Then, we would see more of our Nation's great flag flying proudly and representing the American people; our past, present, and future.