 Full house to White House. From border to border. From Maine to Hawaii. All over America the sun and the flag rise together each morning. So it has been for more than 180 years. So it was for nearly half a century under our flag of 48 stars. And before that, under 33 stars. And before that, under 26 stars. And so it was under all the flags that came before. Old Glory was born in a changing world. And she wasn't our first flag either. There were many before the stars and stripes. So let's go back. Because our flag story is the story of America. Growing from a wilderness into colonies. Colonies into states. States into a great free nation. In the beginning we were British subjects. We were adventurers, settlers, seekers of religious freedom, yes. But first of all, we were English under the cross of St. George. The year was 1607. Three ships of Captain Christopher Newport dropped anchor in Chesapeake Bay. They were four months out of London. The new land was as strange to them as the planet Mars. Lord Percy's diary for this day says, Assure we found fair meadows and goodly tall trees. Noble forests. The ground carpeted with flowers. Gave. Fine strawberries. Turkey nests. And Indy. Thus began the settlement of Jamestown in the colony of Virginia. Onto the same flag a few years later the pilgrims settled in Massachusetts. The flags of many explorers, Dutch, French, Spanish, and others, have flown briefly over our land. But the first to colonize were Englishmen. This was their flag, our flag, as we started to grow from two lonely settlements to 13 expanding colonies. During our early growth the flag of the mother country became the Union Jack, as England and Scotland united. This became our flag too. Though as we grew we were changing gradually almost unconsciously from being colonists to being Americans. The year is now 1773. And all is not well in the king's American dominions. A new flag appears in Massachusetts. There is talk of liberty. But the king still has his royal laws, his royal governors, and royal taxes. It is the tax on imported English tea that hurts the most. And so one night in Boston Samuel Adams led some friends to a tea party dressed as Indians. The strange new flag said liberty. But it was only a hope, not a reality. And British troops cut down the liberty flags wherever they went up. And so the colonies simmered like a kettle on a fire. And the fire grew warmer and presently came the explosion. The year 1775. Already at Concord, Massachusetts the shot heard round the world has been fired. In June a force of patriots gathers on Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill outside Boston. This is their flag. Hill was the first pitched battle of the revolution. And we lost it. But the British paid a murderous price. They knew now for the first time that it would be a fight to the finish. From the pine forested hills of New England more patriot forces gathered as General Washington took command. Actly enough the pine tree flag was flown by many of them, distinguishing New Englanders from troops of other colonies. Boston was now besieged. The British troops that held the city were cut off by land. Floating batteries bombarded the British positions from the river. Along the coasts armed private tears fought running battles with the British men of war. The American fleet could not hope to match the powerful British Navy. But we could sting them, harass them, and pick off the strays. The first fighting schooners of General Washington flew this flag. It is a Massachusetts flag, but each colony had a Navy of its own too. Ranging from one galley to as many as 72 vessels. Now the year is 1776. After the opening clashes the war thus far is about even. We have one failure at Quebec and one success at Boston. Now another flag appears with a new and deadly device, the rattlesnake. The first Marines land with this flag in a raid on the Bahamas in February. It is seen with the South Carolina Navy also. It seems to express our feelings. At about the same time still another flag is seen at Charleston, where a British fleet is trying to seize the city. For 10 hours the British warships pounded Fort Sullivan almost at point blank range. But for 10 hours the Carolina men fought back like demons, destroying one ship, crippling others until the enemy gave up and sailed back to sea. Thus we gained another victory, but the war was young. So far it was just a rebellion, not yet a revolution. Now as the summer comes on in 1776, one flag rises above all others. The Grand Union. The rebellious stripes descended from an old Dutch freedom flag stand for the 13 colonies. The British Union Jack in the corner shows we have not yet broken away from the empire. But a great decision is approaching. The orators, the firebrands, like Patrick Henry and Tom Payne have been heard. The Committees of Correspondence and the Sons of Liberty have done their work. The word independence is heard more and more. The idea of independence spreads and grows. Now it is the time of the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. The time of John Hancock, John Adams, old Ben Franklin and young Tom Jefferson. The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. We must hang together, almost assuredly, we shall all hang separately. There is but one course, a union, a confederation of 13 states, independent of parliament, of ministers and of kings. And so the day came, July 4th, 1776. Throughout the colonies ran the word. Hear ye, a declaration by the Continental Congress. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. All having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. Thus in the midst of a war which the king might easily win, the colonists denounced that king is a tyrant and proclaimed independence throughout the land. No sooner had we declared independence than General Howe struck at New York with a big fleet and an even bigger army. Beaten on Long Island, we retreated to Manhattan. Defeated there, Washington pulled back to White Plains, then across the Hudson into New Jersey. And then retreated still farther south and west to the Delaware River. On Lake Champlain, meanwhile, a fleet of our homemade ships was sunk by British guns. Then just after Christmas, 1776, Washington surprised the British at Trenton and Princeton and beat them decisively. The war was a long way from being over. No, the war was not over, but we have arrived at a dividing line in history. Having separated from the crown, having finished with the Empire, the flag of the United Colonies must become the flag of the United States. It is June 1777. The Congress of the United States enacts a resolution. That the flag of the 13 United States be 13 stripes, alternately red and white. That the Union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation. Betsy Ross of Philadelphia may have made our first stars and stripes. Or perhaps her part in it is only a legend. No one really knows. But this we do know. The 13 stars were indeed a new constellation in the heavens of mankind. Stars of hope in a dark sky. From this time on, nothing in the old world or the new would ever be the same again. But in those early months, the form of our new constellation was not precisely fixed. At Bennington, Vermont, for instance, a British raiding party was crushed by a patriot force flying this flag. Only a few days later, the battle of Saratoga ended in a great American victory. But there was still plenty of fighting to do. On the high seas, John Paul Jones was doing his share under several different flags. This was one of them. It had only 12 stars. Why, we do not know for sure, but there it was standing for liberty and union. And that was enough for Jones. On land, in 1779, 80 and 81, the war flickered across the Carolinas. An American general said, We fight, get beat, rise and fight again. We lost at Camden and won at Kings Mountain. We won at Cowpens and lost at Guilford Courthouse. But win or lose, the British were paying dearly. This was our flag at Guilford. The stripes were blue and red. The stars had eight points instead of five. And they were blue on a white field instead of the other way round. Everything about the flag was wrong, except for one thing. It stood for the 13 United States. And that was all that mattered. The summer came on in 1781 and Cornwallis took his British army to the Virginia coast to contact the British fleet. But the French fleet, allied with us, showed up instead. What by sea, the British sought to break out of the trap by land. But Washington was there with every cannon the colonies could muster. It was time for another kind of flag. October 19th, 1781, Yorktown, Virginia. 7,247 British troops surrendered. The impossible thing had happened. The impossible dream had come true. It was six and a half years from the first shot it conquered to the last at Yorktown, against the greatest nation on earth. We had won the unalienable right to be free. Now, in order to form a more perfect union, we adopted a constitution. Today, 170 years later, it still stands as the most brilliant document of its kind ever conceived. They built well these architects of ours, planning for the expansion which was then already started. Vermont was the first new state to join the old 13. Then, Daniel Boone opened up Kentucky. Now, we were 15 United States. And the new flag showed not only 15 stars, but 15 stripes as well. The year was 1803. President Thomas Jefferson, seizing a great opportunity, made the Louisiana Purchase. In one stroke, we bought the heart of the continent. A gigantic area from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, from which another 13 states were destined to be formed. The cost was $15 million, the price of the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1812, we found ourselves again at war with Britain, this time over freedom of the seas. In this conflict, the spotlight of history shone on Lawrence and Decatur, on Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie, on Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. And there was another man who saw the bombardment of Fort McHenry, saw dawn break over its battlements, and caught the moment in deathless music. Francis Scott King. The War of 1812 interrupted our seaborn commerce, but not our expansion westward. Five new states were organized and joined the Union by 1818. Now, Congress returned to the original flag of 13 stripes. But since no rule was made as to arrangement of the stars, this flag, the great star flag, came into being for a little while. Most flag makers were content, however, to place the 20 stars in straight rows. Not that the 20-star flag could last for long. No, these were years when the making of flags could scarcely keep pace with the making of states. In the south, Mr. Whitney's cotton gin was transforming the entire economy, along with sugar cane. Government land could be bought for a dollar and a quarter an acre. And if you didn't like it in Indiana or wherever you were, you could go out west to Illinois, or on into Indian country. By 1837, six more states had joined the Union. Every few years, the stars of the flag had to be rearranged and increased. The settlements grew into villages. The villages into towns, and the towns began calling themselves cities. Not everyone thought we'd keep on growing. A United States senator about this time said, After we pass the Missouri River, except on a few streams, there is no territory fit for settlement or habitation. Well, maybe not. But if he'd spoken in independence, his words would have been lost in the clouds of dust raised by the westbound wagon trains, heading out over the Santa Fe Trail and the Spanish Trail, the Oregon Trail, and the California Trail. Trails for the Conestoga wagons marked out by Kit Carson and John C. Fremont over 2,000 miles of plains and mountains. This was also the era of David Crocker, who wrote his name and history at the Alamo. Texas for a time was an independent republic. Then in a short-lived war with Mexico, our southern and western borders were settled once and for all. By the annexation of Texas in the Mexican Session, we had lengthed reach the Pacific Coast. And soon we had more states to add to the growing Union. Our flag had 33 stars in the spring of 1861. But on April 12th of that year began the saddest chapter of American history. The Civil War started at Charleston and ended at Appomattox four years later. While it lasted, 11 states were in secession from the Union. The war raged north and south, east and west. Peaceful farms and villages became battlefields. Brother fought against brotherhood. One under the stars and stripes. The other under the stars and bars. This battle flag was also carried by Confederate forces throughout the war. In the end, the Union prevailed. A Union which now numbered 36 states as Kansas, West Virginia and Nevada added their stars to our flag. Now the nation resumed its march westward, always westward. The herds of Buffalo were banishing and herds of cattle appeared instead. The railroad from the east joined the railroad from the west in what is now Utah. And in Philadelphia, there was a great centennial exposition. 100 years had passed since our Declaration of Independence. To mark this event, a Jubilee flag was flown with the 13 stars of our first constellation, now part of a bigger galaxy. Now the remaining territories quickly formed into states. In one year alone, 1890, five new stars were added simultaneously to our flag. And by 1912, all the gaps had been filled. It was thought at one time that Texas should be five states, California two states, and the Dakotas one state. But when the arguments were over, we added up to 48. And there we stayed for nearly half a century, until Alaska and Hawaii made us an even 50. And so here is our flag of today. Our field of stars has now grown great. And in the 13 stripes, there lives and shall always live the symbol of the 13 rebellious colonies who struck the first great blow for freedom. We began with the Cross of St. George a mere three and one half centuries ago. A short span indeed in the long history of mankind. But what we did in that time with our great proposition of freedom has altered history and lifted the hearts of men. For ours is a flag not of conquest, but liberation, not of oppression, but justice, not of domination, but dignity. To all men in all lands and times, these are the colors of liberty.