The colors of the flag are red, representing valor; white, representing hope, purity and truth; blue, representing loyalty, sincerity and justice. The five-pointed star, which is used, tradition says, at Betsy Ross' suggestion, is the sign of infinity.
History of the American Flag
We think of ourselves as a young country, but we have one of the oldest written Constitutions under which a Nation operates, and our flag is one of the oldest in existence.
When our forefathers came from Europe to settle in this country, which is now the United States, they brought with them the flags of their home countries, and planted them on the new territory in symbol of taking possession of it in the name of their liege kings and lands. Gradually the colonies came to belong to England, and the Union Jack became the flag of all, with the thirteen colonies represented by thirteen stripes and the Union Jack in the corner. This flag was known as the Grand Union or Cambridge Flag, and was displayed when Washington first took command of the army at Cambridge. It was raised on December 3, 1775, on the Alfred, flagship of the new little American Navy, by the senior Lieutenant of the ship, John Paul Jones, who later defended it gallantly in many battles at sea.
On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia and the United Colonies dissolved all ties that bound them to England and became an independent nation—the United States. It was immediately necessary to adopt a new flag, as the new nation would not use the Union Jack. Tradition says that in the latter part of May, 1776, George Washington, Robert Morris and Colonel Ross called on Betsy Ross in Philadelphia to make the first flag, which they designed. They kept the thirteen stripes of the Colonial flag, but replaced the Union Jack by a blue field bearing thirteen stars, arranged in a circle.
The birthday of the flag was June 14, 1777, when Congress passed this resolution: Resolved: That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes; alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a constellation.
The first American unfurling the Stars and Stripes over a warship was John Paul Jones when he took command of the Ranger in June, 1777. Tradition says that this flag was made for John Paul Jones by the young ladies of Portsmouth Harbor, and that it was made for him from their own and their mothers' gowns. It was this flag, in February, 1778, that had the honor of receiving from France the first official salute accorded by a foreign nation to the Stars and Stripes.
It was first carried into battle at the Battle of Brandywine in September, 1777, when Lafayette fought with the Colonists and was wounded. This was the famous flag made out of a soldier's white shirt, a woman's red petticoat, and an officer's blue cloak. A famous flag now in the National Museum in Washington is the Flag of fifteen stars and stripes, which floated over Fort McHenry—near Baltimore—in the War of 1812, and which Francis Scott Key (imprisoned on a British ship) saw "by the dawn's early light" after watching through the night "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" as proof that the fort had not fallen to the enemy. The next day he wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner."
It is said that peace has its victories as well as war, and Scouts will want to know that our flag flew from the first vessel ever propelled by steam—Robert Fulton's Clermont.
It was carried by Wilbur Wright on his first successful airplane flight in France.