The first flag of the United States was adopted in 1777 out of the colors red, white, and
blue.
The new country had just declared its independence from Britain, and was made of 13 new states
that used to be British colonies.
So they decided to put 13 red and white stripes on the flag.
And in this blue area of the flag, called the canton, they placed one white star for
each of the 13 states in the union: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina,
and Rhode Island.
So this was the first United States flag, with 13 stripes and 13 stars.
Eventually, two more states were added to the U.S., so they added two more stripes and,
of course, two more stars for Vermont and Kentucky.
15 stripes and 15 stars.
But then, soon enough, there were five new states, and people started to realize that
if they kept adding more stripes, those stripes were going to get ridiculously skinny.
So in 1818, the United States passed a new Flag Act law, which would keep the number
of stripes at 13 in honor of those first 13 states.
But they would add new stars to the flag for the new states to come in the future.
It looks better that way.
So, these five new states were Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi.
20 stars.
The next state to enter the union was Illinois, on December 3, 1818.
Now, that new Flag Act declared that once a new state or states enter the union, the
flag wouldn't officially get its new stars until the next Independence Day, July 4th,
which is still the rule today.
So, because Illinois became a state on December 3, 1818, the new star was officially added
to the flag on July 4, 1819.
So, Illinois, 21 stars.
Now, by the next July 4th, two new states had joined the union: Alabama and Maine, which
actually split off from Massachusetts, so let's just put that one back.
So yeah, Alabama and Maine joined in the same one-year period.
So because of the Flag Act's July 4 rule, the flag jumped from 21 stars straight to
23 stars in 1820.
And now it gets a little boring for a bit.
Missouri, 24 stars.
Arkansas, 25 stars.
Michigan, 26 stars.
Florida, 27 stars.
Texas, 28 stars.
Iowa, 29 stars.
Just keep stealing that land.
Wisconsin, 30 stars.
California, 31 stars.
Kill some more people.
Minnesota, 32 stars.
Oregon, 33 stars.
Kansas, 34 stars.
And now we are in the Civil War.
Of course, the United States kept all the stars even for those states that were trying
to leave the union.
But during the war, a bunch of the western counties of Virginia wanted to stay part of
the USA.
So in 1863, Congress let them split from Virginia and become the brand new state of West Virginia.
And now the flag had 35 stars.
Later on, Nevada became a state.
36 stars.
Nebraska, 37 stars.
Colorado, 38 stars.
Then in 1889 and 1890, between two July 4's, there were five new states: North Dakota,
South Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Idaho.
So from 38 stars, the flag jumped straight to 43 stars.
Then with Wyoming, we got 44 stars.
Utah, 45 stars.
Oklahoma, 46 stars.
Then in 1912, there were two new states: New Mexico and Arizona.
48 stars.
This was also the first time that a specific star pattern was made official by the U.S.
government.
Before this, people were just making up lots of different star arrangements this whole
time.
Anyway, the number of stars stayed at 48 for quite a while until 1959, when Alaska became
a state, giving the flag 49 stars.
And later that summer, Hawai'i became the 50th state, giving us that 50-star flag that
we still have today.
And that is the evolution of the United States flag so far.
Maybe there will be 51 stars on this thing someday.
Who knows?