Having drawn, for the front page of my web site, an image of the flag of Ukraine, due to the current crisis, I thought I would try my hand at drawing the flag of the United States of America*, my country's neighbor to the south.
Given that the current President of the United States has been known to hint at the possibility of military aggression against Canada as well as Greenland, it might be wondered whether a page about the American flag really belongs on my site.
I should like to remind everyone that there once were happier times for the relationship between our two countries.
On the left is pictured John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America.
He is well known for the following words:
From his Inaugural Address:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
From an address to a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961:
First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
From a speech given at Rice University on September 12, 1962:
We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
On the left is the famous photograph of the Earth taken by astronaut William Anders from the Apollo 8 capsule, showing the Earth rising over the Moon.
Incidentally, during 1976 and 1977, he was the U.S. ambassador to Norway.
On the right is a photograph of the astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., as he descends to the surface of the Moon from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, taken by his fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong.
President John F. Kennedy was loved worldwide. However, Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, it has been learned, did not fully share in that sentiment.
Pictured on the right is an American President who was even more popular than President John F. Kennedy; President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States of America.
Not only was he popular, but his Presidency had a very direct impact on the relationship between Canada and the United States.
On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany following its invasion of Poland. Canada followed suit on September 10, 1939; it was not automatically at war with Germany because Britain was, as was the case in World War I, due to changes in Canada's status in the intervening years.
Canada, of course, was closely tied to Britain, its people being subjects of the same King as those of Britain. The United States did not have such ties to any European nation, and many Americans felt it was unnecessary for the United States to involve itself in the problems of far-away foreign nations.
President Roosevelt was one of those who saw isolationism for what it was; foolishness. That is why, although he could not directly involve America in the war at the time, he brought in policies such as Lend-Lease, where the United States supplied Britain as well as the Soviet Union and the Republic of China with war materiel and supplies.
Lend-Lease only dated from March 11, 1941. Shortly after, on April 20, 1941, Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King met with President Roosevelt at his residence in Hyde Park, New York, and they signed an agreement on economic cooperation in connection with the conflict.
In addition, although this was not made public at the time, Roosevelt gave King an assurance that the United States would not leave Canada to fight against the Nazis on its own, after King had told Roosevelt that it would continue to fight on, rather than surrender, even were both Britain and the United States to fall.
From that point on, the United States was producing guns and planes and so on for Canada as well as itself, and American soldiers trained with Canadian ones on many occasions.
Of course, in only a few more months, on December 7, 1941, Imperial Japan thoughtfully provided the United States with a provocation of such magnitude as to jolt the country out of its isolationism, finally making it politically possible for Roosevelt to lead the country towards doing what was necessary for the survival of liberty on this planet.
The personal efforts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, together with the shared experience of the two countries being allies in wartime, did much to cement a close alliance and friendship between Canada and the United States.
Later, Canadian troops would join American ones in Korea and Afghanistan. When American airspace was closed in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Canadians in Gander, Newfoundland opened their homes to Americans temporarily stranded there because their flights home could not continue.
Today, many people are saying that the actions of President Donald J. Trump have damaged the relationship between Canada and the United States beyond repair.
There is, indeed, the very real possibility that he and the Republican Party in the United States may damage democracy in that country beyond repair; and, if the United States does become a Republican one-party dictatorship, the relationship between Canada and the United States will indeed remain indefinitely at a point even lower than its current level.
But if, instead, a Democratic government is elected in 2028, and no extreme events such as an invasion of Canada take place before then, while it will still be true that the reliance and trust between our two countries will be impaired to the extent that the election of another Administration like that of Donald Trump remains a real possibility, I would expect that in the case of these favorable circumstances, the friendship between our two countries would largely return to what it was before.
I have not attempted to draw flags used during the Revolutionary War, or some other special versions of the flag that cropped up unofficially from time to time, just the regular versions with stars added as additional states were admitted to the Union.
One flag that might belong in this category, an alternate version of the flag with 13 stars, was omitted as some sources show it with six-pointed stars, and others with five-pointed stars pointed towards the flagpole.
Thus, the version of the flag with 13 stars that I show is the "Betsy Ross" flag, as it was also later officially adopted by Congress. While the story of Betsy Ross sewing the flag is apparently generally considered to be mythical, it is believed that it was indeed she who demonstrated that a five-pointed star was not impractical to make.
The Thirteen Colonies which became the thirteen original States, are, of course, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia.
The next two states to be added to the United States were Vermont and Kentucky. The flag modified to include those states not only had 15 stars, but also 15 stripes, making it unique.
This flag was adopted in 1795:
Thereafter, it was decided to only increase the number of stars, while leaving the number of stripes at the original thirteen, as one might expect increasing the number of stripes to eventually lead to an excessive number. As there are 50 states in the U.S.A. at present, this was a prescient decision.
A new design for the flag, with 20 stars, and 13 stripes, was then made to acknowledge the admission to the Union of Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi.
This flag was adopted in 1818:
Afterwards, the flag was changed again when Illinois was admitted, instead of waiting for more states.
This flag was adopted in 1819:
Then a flag with 23 stars was adopted to acknowledge the addition of Alabama and Maine to the Union.
This flag was adopted in 1820:
And another star was added for Missouri.
This flag was adopted in 1822:
The frantic pace of growth slowed somewhat, as it took several years before Arkansas was added to the United States.
This flag was adopted in 1836:
And then, the following year, the flag was enlarged again, as Michigan joined the union.
This flag was adopted in 1837:
The next state to join was Florida.
This flag was adopted in 1845:
Later that same year, the flag was restored to a more symmetrical layout, when another star was added for Texas.
This flag was adopted in 1845:
Then another star was added for Iowa.
This flag was adopted in 1847:
And then another return to symmetry when Wisconsin joined:
This flag was adopted in 1848:
Another star was added for California.
This flag was adopted in 1851:
And another for Minnesota.
This flag was adopted in 1858:
And still another for Oregon.
This flag was adopted in 1859:
And another for Kansas.
This flag was adopted in 1861:
When West Virginia split from the rest of the state of Virginia in order to remain in the United States, another star was added to the flag. (Lincoln is credited with the decision not to recognize the attempt of some states to secede by removing their stars from the flag.)
This flag was adopted in 1863:
And then, when Nevada joined the Union, another star was added:
This flag was adopted in 1865:
Then a star was added for Nebraska.
This flag was adopted in 1867:
When a star was added for Colorado, for some reason a different arrangement of the stars was chosen, with the short rows having a star removed on the right instead of being staggered.
This flag was adopted in 1877:
The flag grew by five stars at once to reflect the accession of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Idaho. Again, the arrangement of stars took on an unusual shape.
This flag was adopted in 1890:
Things got back to normal when a star was added for Wyoming.
This flag was adopted in 1891:
And then another star was added for Utah.
This flag was adopted in 1896:
The United States grew to forty-six states when the former Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma.
This flag was adopted in 1908:
The present form of the continental United States, sometimes known as the "lower 48", was completed when New Mexico and Arizona also joined the Union.
This flag was adopted in 1912:
This flag was finally changed after 47 years as a result of Alaskan statehood.
This flag was adopted in 1959:
And, finally, once Hawaii achieved statehood, the flag took on its present form, with which we are familiar.
This flag was adopted in 1960:
* Actually, of course, as my country is the Dominion of Canada, a Dominion being its form of government, and Canada being the name of the country, and its neighbor to the south being the United States of America, a United States being its form of government, and America being the name of the country, I should have said that the flags of America were being shown here. On this page I discuss the erroneous convention to which I have deferred above.
Copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2000 John J. G. Savard