Francis Hopkinson was an American Founding Father, lawyer, jurist, author, and composer. He designed Continental paper money and two early versions of flags, one for the United States and one for the United States Navy. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 as a delegate from New Jersey.
A 1785 portrait of Hopkinson by Robert Edge Pine
Francis Hopkinson's flag for the U.S., an interpretation, with 13 six-pointed stars arranged in five rows
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton, referred to as the union and bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Great Britain, which they went on to secure by their victory in the American Revolutionary War.
Oil painting depicting the 39 historical U.S. flags.
Our Banner in the Sky (1861) by Frederic Edwin Church
An American flag on the U.S. embassy in Warsaw during a German air raid in September 1939
The NASA Vehicle Assembly Building in 1977. The VAB has the largest U.S. flag ever used on a building, with the Bicentennial Star opposite the flag.