The Origin of the Star-Spangled Banner

The American flag is commonly known as the “Stars and Stripes” and is officially known as “The Flag of the United States.” Also known as The Stars and Stripes, Red, White and Blue, Old Glory, The Star-Spangled Banner.

The American flag has been modified 26 times. The earliest American flag had only 13 stars, and each subsequent state that joined the United States added a star to the flag, but the number of wide bars remained the same. Under the Flag Act of 1818, passed by the U.S. Congress on April 4, 1818, the flag can only be changed on July 4, the day the Declaration of Independence was issued. On August 21, 1959, Hawaii officially became a state of the United States, and the following year’s National Day, the 49 stars on the flag were changed to 50 — the most recent change to the American flag.

There is no accurate and unified account of the origin of the Stars and Stripes, but roughly speaking, there are three main theories that are widely circulated.

The first version is a story that has been widely circulated in the United States, where the first Star-Spangled Banner was sewn by Betsy Ross after obtaining personal authorization from George Washington. In 1773, when she was 21 years old, she eloped with a carpet decorator, John Ross, and the couple went into business. Shortly after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, John Ross was killed in an explosion, and Betsy Ross returned to Philadelphia. Because of her excellent needlework, in the early summer of 1776 she received a visit from a three-member committee consisting of George Washington, George Ross, and Robert Morris. Washington showed Betsy the blueprints of the nascent flag of the United States of America and asked her to make the first flag.

A few days later, when Washington and the other three came to the door again, Betsey had finished sewing the flag, showing them the first American flag, the Star-Spangled Banner. However, this is only a very widespread story in the United States, because it was all told and handed down by Betsy Ross himself, and beyond that, there is no other textual or any way of record that can prove the truth of this claim.

The second version was put forward by the British historian Charles Fawcett. He believed that the design of the Star-Spangled Banner was inspired by the flag of the British East India Company. Since the East India Company’s flag was very similar to the original Stars and Stripes, this claim was supported by many.

The third version is that the flag was designed by Francis Hopkinson. In the beginning, he designed the American flag to have thirteen stars arranged in four bands (one horizontal, one vertical and two diagonal). Later, this design was rejected on the grounds that such a flag was identical to the Rice Flag of Great Britain. For the new United States, which had just gained independence from Great Britain, such a flag seemed to imply that the United States would not be able to escape British influence after independence. So after the modifications, the design scheme of the Star-Spangled Banner was finally formed.