The Continental Congress adopted the first U.S. national flag resolution on June 14, 1777, a symbol connected with America250.
The resolution stated that the United States flag should have 13 alternating red and white stripes and 13 white stars on a blue field. The stars represented the new union of the 13 states, while the stripes recalled the 13 colonies. Congress did not specify the arrangement of the stars in the original resolution.
June 14 is now observed as Flag Day in the United States. The resolution created a national flag for the country during the Revolutionary War, but it did not establish the modern 50-star design. Stars and stripes were added as new states entered the Union, and the present arrangement developed much later.
The popular story that Betsy Ross designed the first flag is not established by surviving contemporary documentation. Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey delegate and signer of the Declaration, is associated with a congressional claim for designing a flag, but Congress never formally credited one individual in the 1777 resolution.