In 1949, President Harry Truman designated June 14 as Flag Day in the US, requesting that all Americans celebrate and honor our flag. How did our flag originate and what has transpired with it over all these years? If you are as curious as we are, here are some fun facts about our American flag that you and your children should know.
History of Our American Flag
The Smithsonian Institute has quite a bit of information about our American flag on its website. The beginning of the American flag, as we know it today, started when the Continental Congress adopted a resolution in 1777 that the flag of the United States will be made of thirteen stripes that will be alternately red and white with the Union being thirteen stars with white in a blue field to represent a new constellation.
Before 1912, there was no prescribed order for the stars and stripes so many different designs for our American flag existed. An Act of Congress in 1818 provided for: “13 stripes, representing the original 13 colonies, and one star for each state, to be added to the flag on the 4th of July following the admission of each new state.”
About the Star-Spangled Banner
The original “Star-Spangled Banner” that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem still exists and is at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. It was commissioned by Major George Armistead, Commander at Fort McHenry, and made by flag maker Mary Pickersgill in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1813. The original size of the Star-Spangled Banner American flag was 30 feet by 42 feet which was larger than the normal 20 by 38-foot garrison flags used by the United States Army and had fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. Major Armistead had it raised over the fort in September 1814 to signal the Americans’ defeat of the British in the Battle of Baltimore. When Key saw the flag raised, he wrote the patriotic song.
After the 49th and 50th states were admitted to the Union, the flag had to be redesigned. In 1959, President Eisenhower signed an Executive Order in which the flag was to be designed with the stars arranged in nine rows, staggered horizontally, and eleven rows, spaced vertically, with thirteen stripes.
The Origin of Flag Day
Flag Day actually originated in Waukeba, Wisconsin in 1885 when a schoolteacher named Bernard J. Cigrand started having his students reflect on the meaning of the flag and write essays about what the flag meant to them. Over a century later, in 2004, the 108th U.S. Congress passed H.R. 662, stating that Waubeka, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, was the birthplace of Flag Day.
For more information, please visit:
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/flag-day/banner-facts
http://www.nationalflagday.com/history
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