Some of the best, some of the most famous, but the best first:
The signatures of Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Cooldige. Not our most accomplished Chief Executives; too much time perfecting their signatures, perhaps.
Now the famous:
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John F. Kennedy.
The American flag has remained the same for decades, aside from the addition of a few stars here and there. But there were many versions of the flag before the one we’ve come to know and love(?) today. These include flags with no red white and blue, flags made up on the spot by John Paul Jones to avoid charges of piracy by Dutch statesmen, flags featuring disgusting reptiles, etc., etc. Here’s a sampling of some of the coolest and most surprising.
One of the very first American symbols, this flag flew over American shipping vessels c. 1775. It was a message to the British, and a nationalistic ode to the new world. It was called the Liberty Tree flag.
And now we’ve moved to the first type of flag flown by the fledgling American Navy, c. 1775. It’s still flown today on the oldest naval ship. The rattlesnake is ominous, poisonous warning. Also, disgusting.
We all know the (probably) mythical story of Betsy Ross sewing the first real American flag in 1776. Here’s the (probably fictional) representation of the woman herself presenting her work to Washington.
The flag flown by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys at the Battle of Bennington, 1777.
The actual flag flown over Fort Sumter in 1861 – the first battle of the Civil War, won by the Confederacy.