Happy Fourth of July, friend. Today the Stars and Stripes will be hanging off porches, waving over parades, and flapping behind pickup trucks all across the country, and I figured there’s no better day to actually stop and look at the thing. Because the more I dug into the story of the American flag, the more I realized I’d been saluting it for decades without knowing half of where it came from. A schoolkid, a sea captain, a strict rulebook, and a quiet row of flags 240,000 miles away. Here are five true things about Old Glory that made me love it even more.
Did you know the flag we fly today was designed by a 17-year-old for a school project… and he got a B-?
This one sounds made up, but it checks out. Back in 1958 an Ohio high schooler named Robert “Bob” Heft had a wide-open class assignment from his history teacher: make something, anything, and bring it in. The country still flew a 48-star flag at the time, but Heft bet that Alaska and Hawaii were about to join the union, so he sat down at his grandparents’ kitchen table, cut out 100 stars by hand (50 for each side), and stitched together a 50-star flag that didn’t officially exist yet. He spent over twelve hours on it. His teacher gave him a B-. Heft argued the grade, and his teacher reportedly told him that if the design ever got adopted by Congress, he’d reconsider. Well. On July 4, 1960, the 50-star flag became official, matching Heft’s design almost exactly, and that B- got bumped up to an A. So the flag you’re flying today started as a teenager’s so-so homework.
Did you know the American flag has been officially redesigned 27 times?
We tend to picture “the flag” as one fixed thing, but it’s actually been revised 27 times over its history, and each version is basically a snapshot of how big the country was at the time. The first official Stars and Stripes came from the Flag Resolution of June 14, 1777: thirteen stripes and thirteen stars for the thirteen original colonies. As new states joined, lawmakers kept adjusting it. For a stretch they even added a stripe per state, until the Flag Act of 1818 wisely locked the stripes back at thirteen forever and said only stars would be added going forward. That’s why every new state since has meant a brand-new flag, all the way up to the 50-star version we’ve flown since 1960. At more than six decades, today’s flag has now held the title longer than any design before it.
Did you know “Old Glory” got its name from a sea captain who shouted it at his ship’s mast?
The nickname isn’t some vague poetic phrase that floated in from nowhere. It traces back to one specific man: William Driver, a merchant sea captain from Salem, Massachusetts. Around 1831, as he was preparing to set sail, friends and family gave him a big, beautiful American flag as a gift. The story goes that as the flag was hoisted up the mast and caught the wind for the first time, Driver looked up and called out, “Old Glory!” The name stuck to that particular flag for the rest of his life, and Driver was so devoted to it that during the Civil War he reportedly sewed it into a quilt to hide it from Confederate soldiers. Over time the name jumped from his single banner to the Stars and Stripes itself. So every time you call it “Old Glory,” you’re quoting a 19th-century sea captain.
Did you know there are six American flags on the Moon?
Across the Apollo program, astronauts planted a total of six American flags on the lunar surface, one for each crewed landing from Apollo 11 through Apollo 17. And here’s the bittersweet part: photos from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter suggest that five of those six are most likely still standing today, casting little shadows on the gray dust. The one exception is the very first, the Apollo 11 flag, which Buzz Aldrin said got knocked flat by the blast of exhaust when the lunar module lifted off to head home. Scientists also figure decades of brutal, unfiltered sunlight have probably bleached the surviving flags from red, white, and blue to a ghostly plain white. Faded or not, the American flag is still the only nation’s banner standing on another world.
Did you know there’s an actual federal rulebook for how to treat the flag, and it says the flag should never touch the ground?
The flag isn’t just decoration; it has its own etiquette code, the United States Flag Code, with surprisingly specific rules. It says the flag should never touch the ground beneath it. It shouldn’t be flown in bad weather unless it’s an all-weather flag. When it’s displayed flat against a wall, the blue field of stars goes to the upper left. It shouldn’t be used as clothing, bedding, or drapery, and it should never be marked or drawn on. And when a flag is worn out and no longer fit to fly, the Code says it should be retired in a dignified way, preferably by burning. Here’s the catch that trips people up: the Flag Code is a guide of respect, not a law with penalties, so nobody’s getting arrested for flying it in the rain. It’s less a rulebook you’re forced to follow and more a list of ways to show the old girl some respect.
Forward this to the most patriotic person you know… I’ll bet you a hot dog they didn’t know about the teenager’s B- or the six flags on the Moon.
