Congress approved the final design of the Great Seal of the United States in 1782. The approval came on June 20, after six years of proposals and committee work.
The Continental Congress appointed the first committee to design a national seal on July 4, 1776. Two additional committees considered designs before Secretary of Congress Charles Thomson combined important elements into a final proposal.
The obverse features a bald eagle holding an olive branch and thirteen arrows, with a shield on its breast. The reverse includes an unfinished pyramid, the Eye of Providence, and Latin mottos including E pluribus unum. Many features refer to the original thirteen states.
The seal is not the same thing as the Great Seal’s printed image on every dollar bill. The seal authenticates official documents, while related imagery appears on the reverse of the one-dollar note. Its 1782 approval places it firmly in the founding era remembered by America250.