Norman Mailer (left) and Jimmy Breslin (right): would-be architects of the 51st state. American history is filled with failed, idealistic campaigns for office. It is also filled with failed, idealistic attempts to form new states. Most states, at least once in their histories, have seen proposals to split the states into two or more pieces. Texas and California have been the subjects of such proposals many times—in fact, a plan to split California into six states was advanced in 2014, but failed when proponents were caught submitting fraudulent petitions to inflate support for the measure. An attempt to split California into three states was shot down by the California Supreme Court in 2018. Splitting states sometimes works out. Kentucky and West Virginia were split from Virginia; Tennessee was split from North Carolina; Alabama was split from Georgia; and Maine was split from Massachusetts. The most recent partitioning of a state, however, was the creation of West Virgini...

When we think of the early flag of the United States, we often think of the version with 13 stripes and 13 stars in a circle in the blue field in the corner.  While this is accurate, this is not the only version of this particular flag that was common in the early days of the republic. The number 13 represents the number of colonies that revolted against Great Britain in 1776 to form the United States of America, of course.  According to the Continental Congress’s Flag Act of 1777, the stripes were to alternate red and white, but there was no rule to the layout of the stars.  Putting them in a ring was fine, but so was putting them in rows, or in a star shape, or whatever you might want. All that mattered was that there was 13.  As long as you got that right, nothing else mattered. By 1795, the United States had grown to 15 states, following the admissions of the state of Vermont (1791) and the commonwealth of Kentucky (1792).  A new flag was approved to ref...