What date is commemorated as the first official adoption of the United States flag?

June 14, 1777, is commemorated as the date Congress first officially adopted the United States flag.

The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that the flag should have 13 alternating red and white stripes and 13 white stars on a blue field. The stars represented the 13 states then united in the Revolutionary War. The resolution did not specify the arrangement of the stars, and it did not name a designer.

The familiar story that Betsy Ross made the first flag is widely known, but historians have found no contemporary evidence proving that she designed the national flag. Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey delegate and signer of the Declaration of Independence, is the only person credited with a documented claim related to the flag's design, though Congress never paid him for it.

Flag Day is observed annually on June 14. The flag later gained additional stars as new states joined the Union, while the number of stripes was fixed at 13.