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Aftermath
April 1818

Illustration

Before 1818, the United States added one star and one stripe to the flag for every new state that joined the Union. But with more and more territories becoming states, the flag was about to become really strange-looking. So on this date, Congress passed a new law describing how the flag would look.

The Flag Act permanently reduced the number of stripes to thirteen-to honor the thirteen original colonies-and said that one star would be added to the flag for each new state.

So if you think it's tough drawing all those stars in the American flag-imagine if you also had to color in 50 teeny tiny little red and white stripes.

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Vocabulary
Canton
The four quarters of a flag are called cantons. The upper left-hand corner of the flag is known as the "hoist". The canton is sometimes also called the union.

Rule