The 1795 United States flag had fifteen stars after Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union.
The Flag Act of 1794 provided for two additional stars and two additional stripes, reflecting the admission of Vermont as the fourteenth state and Kentucky as the fifteenth. The revised flag became official on May 1, 1795.
The fifteen-star flag is especially famous because it flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Its appearance inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The surviving flag associated with that event is unusually large and is preserved by the Smithsonian Institution.
Congress later realized that adding a stripe for every new state would make the design increasingly impractical. The Flag Act of 1818 returned the number of stripes to thirteen and established a lasting system of adding one star for each new state.