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Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner was an Austrian biologist and physician, who won a Nobel Prize.
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The Stars and Stripes is adopted as the Flag of the Usa14.6.1777

Wikipedia (04 Jun 2013, 14:45)
The national flag of the United States of America, often simply referred to as the American flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton (referred to specifically as the "union") bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternating with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states of the United States of America and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the first states in the Union. Nicknames for the flag include the "Stars and Stripes", "Old Glory", and "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The Flag Resolution of 1777

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment.

The 1777 resolution was most probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of national flag did not yet exist, or was only nascent. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee. On May 10, 1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern "it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States."

The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement, number of points, nor orientation for the stars. One famous arrangement features 13 outwardly-oriented five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, the so-called Betsy Ross flag. Although the Betsy Ross legend is controversial, the design is among the earliest 13-star flags. Popular designs at the time were varied and most were individually crafted rather than mass-produced. Examples of 13-star arrangements can be found on other flags attributed to Francis Hopkinson, the Cowpens flag, and the Brandywine flag. Given the scant archaeological and written evidence, it is unknown if one design was the most popular during the period.

Despite the 1777 resolution, a number of flags only loosely based on the prescribed design were used in the early years of American independence. One example may have been the Guilford Court House Flag, traditionally believed to have been carried by the American troops at the Battle of Guilford Court House in 1781. Other evidence suggests it dates only to the nineteenth century. The original flag is at the North Carolina Historical Museum.

The origin of the stars and stripes design is inadequately documented. The apocryphal story credits Betsy Ross for sewing the first flag from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No evidence for this exists; indeed, nearly a century had passed before Ross' grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested it. Another woman, Rebecca Young, has also been credited as having made the first flag by later generations of her family. Young's daughter was Mary Pickersgill, who made the Star Spangled Banner Flag. According to rumour, the Washington family coat of arms, shown in a 15th-century window of Selby Abbey, was the origin of the stars and stripes.

It is clear that Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed the 1777 flag while he was the Chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. This contradicts the Betsy Ross legend, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag by request of the government in the Spring of 1776. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own lifetime, when he sent a bill to Congress for his work. He asked for a "Quarter Cask of the Public Wine" as payment initially. The payment was not made, however, because it was determined he had already received a salary as a member of Congress, and he was not the only person to have contributed to the design.


   
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