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The Stars and Stripes originated from a resolution adopted by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, which stated that the flag of the United States must be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, and that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation. The new flag was to replace the disparate array of flags created by different colonies of settlers.
The resolution gave no further instruction and as a result, some flags had stars scattered on the blue field without any design, while others had the stars in rows or in a circle. Also, some stars had six points while others had eight.
With the addition of two new states to the union in 1791 and 1792, a resolution was adopted to expand the flag to 15 stars and stripes. This was the official American flag from 1795 to 1818, inspiring Francis Scott key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Realizing that the flag would become unwieldy with a stripe added for each new state, Navy Captain Samuel Reid proposed that the stripes remain 13, to represent the thirteen original states, while a new star be added for each State entering the Union. In 1818, President Monroe accepted the bill for a flag which contained 20 stars and a provision to allow a star for each new state, to be added July 4 following its admission into the Union.
Eventually, the growth of the nation resulted in a flag with 48 stars after the admission of Arizona and New Mexico in 1912 and finally 50 stars with the admission of Alaska in 1959 and Hawaii in 1960. The 50 stars prompted a final redesign, signed into law in 1959 and effective on July 4, 1960.
The flag was described by President Woodrow Wilson as "an emblem of our unity, thought and purpose as a nation...with no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation."
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