Left to right: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin: for the birds--or were they? In the 1969 musical   1776   there is a passionate discussion about what America’s national symbol should be.  Three of the delegates to the Continental Congress--Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams--argue with each other to support their favorite candidates.  Before breaking out in song, you hear Jefferson advocating that the dove, the bird of peace, represent the new nation.  John Adams advocates the majestic eagle.  Benjamin Franklin pushes for the intelligent, indigenous turkey.  If you’ll pardon the spoiler: John Adams wins the argument.   The song “The Egg” from   1776 It’s a charming song, and an amusing scene, but I’m afraid it was just a myth.  What the song refers to is an actual committee that the three men were on that was tasked to come up with a design for the Great Seal of the United States....

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...