Variously known as the “Stars and Stripes”, “Old Glory”, or “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the flag of the United States of America originally had 13 alternating stripes of red and white and 13 stars. The 13’s represented the 13 original states of the union, and that numbering is preserved today in the stripes, while each of the 50 states has its own star. The current flag is in fact the 27th incarnation, as it has been updated on numerous occasions as additional states joined the nation – it is also the design that has been in use for the longest period.
The first flag had no set design for the arrangement of stars, and multiple versions of it existed, each one with a different designer and different partisans. The original resolution of the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777 failed to specify an arrangement of stars, and indeed, it was not until 1818 that rules regarding the design of the flag, including the numbers of both stars and horizontal stripes, were formalised.
