On January 1, 1776 that the Continental army was reorganized and attuned according to a Congressional resolution which announced American forces to the command of George Washington. The same day, the American Continental Army was obstructing Boston which had been taken over by the British army. It has been said that the first American flag was made in May of 1776 by Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress who was actually an acquaintance of George Washington and a friend with other prominent and high-ranking Philadelphians. What Ross had in his mind was the five-pointed star is used instead of the star with six points justifying that the five-pointed star can be cut off easily with a few trims of the scissors. The first informal flag of America was called the Grand Union Flag, also known as the Continental Colors. It was hoisted at the order and authority of General Washington close to his headquarters outside Boston January 1, 1776. This first unofficial flag was form of thirteen alternating white and red horizontal stripes, with the British Union Flag in the canton. On June 14, 1777, the first official American flag was accepted by the Continental Congress. This flag was also known as the Stars and Stripes for it consisted of 13 stars which represented the first 13 colonies. There is not enough evident of who actually designed and made this flag but it is said that it was Francis Hopkinson, a Continental Congress member, designed the flag. However, between 1777 and 1960, the Congress put into practice the procedures that varied its shape, design and structure of the flag. And it was decided that there was a need for additional starts to represent all the states of America. It was on January 3, 1959 that President Eisenhower issued an administrative order which states that the arrangement of the stars should be in six horizontal rows of eight, each single point of every star directed upward. In 1791 and 1792, after Kentucky and Vermont were added to the Union, two stars and two stripes were added during 1795. This stimulated lawyer Francis Scott Key to write and compose a poem which later became the U.S. National Anthem. It was in 1818 that five more states had been added and declared and the Congress decided to pass legislation that fixes the number of stars and stripes. The stars would have equal numbers as the states. On July 4, 1960, the last new star was added after Hawaii became a state, which gives a total number of fifty stars. All along 200 years the American Flag has been the insignia of the nation's supremacy and synchronization that holds millions of citizens together in attaining one goal. |
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