[originaltext] The basic flag of the United States is one of the world’s old

The basic flag of the United States is one of the world’s oldest national flags. Only the basic flags of Austria, Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland are older.
    The first official flag of the United States was created by Congress on June 14,1777. It consisted of 13 alternate red and white stripes and 13 white stars in a field of blue, representing the 13 colonies that had declared their independence in 1776. Congress adopted a new flag of 15 stars and 15 stripes in 1795, to give representation to the two new states admitted into the Union, Vermont and Kentucky.
    By 1817, there were 20 states in the Union, and it became apparent that adding one stripe for each new state would destroy the shape of the flag. As a result, in 1818, congress restored the design of 13 stripes and provided that each state was to be represented by one star. In 1912 President William H. Taft made the first official provision for the arrangement of the stars. He ordered that there be six even rows of eight stars each. Previously, the arrangement of the stars had been left to the flag-maker’s fancy.
    The evolution of the Stars and Stripes reflects the growth of the United States. After the admission of Hawaii into the Union in 1959, the flag was officially changed for the 26th time since its creation.