Congress passed the Flag Act establishing the first official U.S. flag in 1777.
The Continental Congress approved the act on June 14, 1777, during the Revolutionary War. It specified thirteen alternating red and white stripes and thirteen white stars on a blue field. The stars represented the thirteen states, while the stripes recalled the colonies.
The law did not prescribe the stars’ arrangement, so early flags could display them in different patterns. The familiar circle of stars associated with the Betsy Ross flag is one later interpretation, not a design explicitly required by the Flag Act.
As new states joined the Union, Congress added stars and, for a time, stripes. The Flag Act of 1818 fixed the flag at thirteen stripes while allowing a star for each new state. The modern flag therefore preserves the original thirteen-stripe symbolism while its stars reflect the current number of states.