The Very American Tale of Why the Country Still Believes a Decades-Old Lie About the U.S. Flag

When Robert G. Heft was 17, he made a flag. In March 1959, Heft was a high school junior in Lancaster, Ohio, and the standard United States flag still had 48 stars: Alaska had only recently joined the union, and Hawaii’s admission was several months away. As an assignment for his American history class, Heft decided to make a new U.S. flag with 50 stars, which he cut out of mending fabric, ironed onto a rectangle of blue cloth, and attached to the stripes of a flag that belonged to his grandparents.

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