Old Glory

Flag of the United States of America

Design:   Thirteen horizontal stripes alternating red and white; in the canton, 50 white stars of alternating numbers of six and five per horizontal row on a blue field

The flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the American flag or U.S. flag, is the national flag of the United States. It consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton (referred to specifically as the "union") bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states of the United States of America, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and became the first states in the U.S. Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and the Star-Spangled Banner. 

Display and Use:   The flag is customarily flown year-round at most public buildings, and it is not unusual to find private houses flying full-size (3 by 5 feet (0.91 by 1.52 m)) flags. Some private use is year-round, but becomes widespread on civic holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Presidents' Day, Flag Day, and on Independence Day. On Memorial Day it is common to place small flags by war memorials and next to the graves of U.S. war veterans. Also on Memorial Day it is common to fly the flag at half staff, until noon, in remembrance of those who lost their lives fighting in U.S. wars.

Flag Etiquette:   The United States Flag Code outlines certain guidelines for the use, display, and disposal of the flag. For example, the flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. This tradition may come from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: the American flag bearer did not. Team captain Martin Sheridan is famously quoted as saying "this flag dips to no earthly king", though the true provenance of this quotation is unclear. The flag should never be allowed to touch the ground and, if flown at night, must be illuminated. If the edges become tattered through wear, the flag should be repaired or replaced. When a flag is so tattered that it can no longer serve as a symbol of the United States, it should be destroyed in a dignified manner, preferably by burning. The American Legion and other organizations regularly conduct flag retirement ceremonies, often on Flag Day, June 14. (The Boy Scouts of America recommends that modern nylon or polyester flags be recycled instead of burned, due to hazardous gases being produced when such materials are burned.) Section 8, entitled "Respect For Flag" states in part: "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery", and "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform". Section 3 of the Flag Code defines "the flag" as anything "by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag of the United States of America".  Although the Flag Code is U.S. federal law, there is no penalty for a private citizen or group failing to comply with the Flag Code and it is not widely enforced—indeed, punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.  Passage of the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment would overrule legal precedent that has been established. 

Timeline of the flag of the United States:

1776 January 1 – The Continental Colours designed in 1775 is displayed at the camp of the commanding General George Washington of Virginia over the Continental Army forces in the American Revolutionary War at Prospect Hill, north of Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts during the Siege of Boston. It has 13 alternate red and white stripes representing the original Thirteen Colonies and the British Union Jack flag, in a square in the upper left-hand corner.

1776 May – A popular legend promulgated by the descendants of Betsy Ross of Philadelphia during the 1870s holds that the seamstress sewed the first American flag. The claim is widely discredited by researchers and historians.

1777 June 14 – Continental Congress adopts the following: "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."

1795 – Flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes designed - often with unique red stripe under the blue field/canton (added Vermont, Kentucky to the original Thirteen Colonies stars)

1814 September 14 – Francis Scott Key writes the four stanza poem "The Star-Spangled Banner". It becomes the official national anthem of the United States in 1931. The unique 15-star, 15-stripe design with a red stripe under the blue canton with stars (used from 1795 to 1818) of the huge flag made by Mary Young Pickersgill later seen by Key flying over Fort McHenry outside Baltimore in September 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore in a British attack becomes known as the "Star Spangled Banner Flag".

1818 – Flag with 20 stars and returned to the 13 stripes design of alternating red and white colors of 1777. It remains at 13 stripes hereafter to the present with only stars added for additional states admitted to the Union, on next following Independence Day, July 4. (Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817) added from previous years). (An unofficial 16-star, 16-stripe flag had been made in Tennessee, and an unofficial 17-star, 13-stripe flag in Ohio.)

1819 – Flag with 21 stars (Illinois)

1820 – Flag with 23 stars (Alabama, Maine) first flag on Pikes Peak, (located in future Colorado)

1822 – Flag with 24 stars (Missouri)

1836 – Flag with 25 stars (Arkansas)

1837 – Flag with 26 stars (Michigan)

1845 – Flag with 27 stars (Florida)

1846 – Flag with 28 stars (Texas)

1847 – Flag with 29 stars (Iowa)

1848 – Flag with 30 stars (Wisconsin)

1851 – Flag with 31 stars (California)

1858 – Flag with 32 stars (Minnesota)

1859 – Flag with 33 stars (Oregon)

1861 – Flag with 34 stars; (Kansas). Even after the Southern states seceded from the Union, establishing the Confederate States of America, 16th President Abraham Lincoln would not allow any star to be removed from the American flag. The first National Flag of the Confederacy (nicknamed "The Stars and Bars") is adopted by the provisional government in the temporary capital of Montgomery, Alabama

1863 – Flag with 35 stars (West Virginia, western counties withdrew from seceded Virginia)

1865 – Flag with 36 stars (Nevada)

1867 – Flag with 37 stars (Nebraska)

1869 – First flag on a U.S. postage stamp

1876 – Flag with 38 stars (Colorado)

1889 – Flag with 39 stars that never was. Flag manufacturers mistakenly believed that the two Dakotas would be admitted instead as one state and so manufactured this flag, some of which still exist. It was never an official flag.

1890 – Flag with 42 stars that never was. It was anticipated that Idaho would be admitted after July 4 and manufacturers tried to get a headstart by making 42 star flags. Idaho was admitted on July 3rd. As Wyoming was admitted July 10, few of the official 43 star flags were manufactured.

1890 – Flag with 43 stars (North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho)

1891 – Flag with 44 stars (Wyoming)

1896 – Flag with 45 stars (Utah)

1897 – Adoption of State Flag Desecration Statutes – By the late 1800s an organized flag protection movement was born in reaction to perceived commercial and political misuse of the flag. After supporters failed to obtain federal legislation, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota became the first States to adopt flag desecration statutes. By 1932, all of the States had adopted flag desecration laws.

1907 – Halter v. Nebraska (205 U.S. 34) – The U.S. Supreme Court held that although the flag was a federal creation, the States' had the authority to promulgate flag desecration laws under their general police power to safeguard public safety and welfare. Halter involved a conviction of two businessmen selling "Stars and Stripes" brand beer with representations of the U.S. flag affixed to the labels. The defendants did not raise any constitutional First Amendment claim.

1908 – Flag with 46 stars (Oklahoma)

1909 – Explorer Robert Peary places the flag his wife sewed atop the North Pole. He left pieces of another flag along the way. He was never censured for his action.

1912 – Flag with 48 stars (New Mexico, Arizona) completing "Lower 48" continental U.S. Becomes longest serving flag of 47 years 1912–1959. (An unofficial 47-star flag was made for commemorative purposes in New Mexico.)

1942 – Federal Flag Code (36 U.S.C. 171 et seq.) – On June 22, 1942, 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Federal Flag Code, providing for uniform guidelines for the display and respect shown to the flag. The Flag Code does not prescribe any penalties for non-compliance nor does it include any enforcement provisions, rather it functions simply as a guide for voluntary civilian compliance.

1943 – West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (319 U.S. 624) – The Supreme Court held that public school children could not be compelled to salute the U.S. flag.

1945 – The flag that flew over Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii on Sunday, December 7, 1941, is flown over the White House on August 14, 1945, "V-J Day" when the Japanese accepted surrender terms.

1949 August 3 – 34th President Harry Truman signs bill requesting the President call for a Flag Day (June 14th) observance each year by proclamation.

1959 – Flag with 49 stars (Alaska)

1960 – Flag with 50 stars (Hawaii)

1963 – American Flag placed on top of Mount Everest in Himalayas Mountains in Nepal (tallest in the world), by Barry Bishop.

1968 – Adoption of Federal Flag Desecration Law (18 U.S.C. 700 et seq.) – Congress approved the first federal flag desecration law in the wake of a highly publicized Central Park flag burning incident in New York City in protest of the Vietnam War. The federal law made it illegal to "knowingly" cast "contempt" upon "any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon it." The law defined flag in an expansive manner similar to most States.

1969 – July 20 – Astronauts Neil Armstrong with Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin of Apollo 11 places the American flag on the Moon at "Tranquillity Base".

1970–1980 – Revision of State Flag Desecration Statutes – During this period legislatures in some 20 States narrowed the scope of their flag desecration laws in an effort to conform to perceived Constitutional restrictions under the Street, Smith, and Spence cases and to more generally parallel the Federal Law (i.e., focusing more specifically on mutilation and other forms of physical desecration, rather than verbal abuse or commercial or political misuse).

1989 – Revision of Federal Flag Desecration Statute – Pursuant to the Flag Protection Act of 1989, Congress amended the 1968 federal flag desecration statute in an effort to make it "content neutral" and conform to the Constitutional requirements of the Johnson case. As a result, the 1989 Act sought to prohibit flag desecration under all circumstances by deleting the statutory requirement that the conduct cast contempt upon the flag and narrowing the definition of the term "flag" so that its meaning was not based on the observation of third parties.

1990 – United States v. Eichman (496 U.S. 310) – Passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989 resulted in a number of flag burning incidents protesting the new law. The Supreme Court overturned several flag burning convictions brought under the Flag Protection Act. The Court held that notwithstanding Congress' effort to adopt a more content neutral law, the federal law continued to be principally aimed at limiting symbolic speech.

1990 – Rejection of Constitutional Amendment – Following the Eichman decision, Congress considered and rejected a Constitutional Amendment specifying that "the Congress and the States have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." The amendment failed to muster the necessary two-thirds Congressional majorities, as it was supported by only a 254 – 177 margin in the House (290 votes were necessary) and a 58 – 42 margin in the Senate (67 votes were necessary).

1995 – The Flag Desecration Constitutional Amendment is narrowly defeated in the U.S. Senate. The Amendment to the Constitution would make burning the flag a punishable crime.

2005 – U.S. House of Representatives passes a new flag desecration constitutional amendment

2006 – U.S. Senate rejects new constitutional amendment

2007 – The longevity in years used of the present 50-star flag is now tied with that of the 48-star flag, both having experienced 47 years of continuous use. After this date, the 50-star flag became the longest-used version of the Flag of the United States of America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_flag_of_the_United_States