Comments on: The 5pm Quiz: State Nicknames

By: Jason English

Jason English — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:53:51 +0000

Hey Jimbob. Almost all the 5pm Quizzes have been posted before, except on rare occasions when there’s a very narrow topic we want to cover (like my USFL quiz from earlier this week.) We save the new quizzes for the Lunchtime slot.

By: jimbob

jimbob — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:27:39 +0000

i thought this was a recycled quiz!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Jonny:

They did increase the number of stripes as well as stars in the first couple incarnations of the flag. But even once they reverted the stripes to 13 and added new stars for each state, there was some lag time – they tended to increase the number of stars in batches, not automatically as soon as a state was added.

According to Wikipedia:

* the Flag Act of 1794 provided for 15 stripes and 15 stars after May 1795.
* the Flag Act of 1818 provided for 13 stripes and one star for each state, adding new stars on the 4th of July after the admission of a new state.

So since Louisiana joined the Union between those two acts, a U.S. flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes could indeed have flown over the state.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:44:00 +0000

From 1795 to 1818, there were 15 stripes.

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_flag_of_the_United_States
and: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States

By: Jonny

Jonny — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:26:00 +0000

um, “fifteen stars and stripes of the United States”? Really? I always thought there were 13 stripes and varying numbers of stars.

But as Louisiana joined the Union in 1803 (1812 as a state), the first US flag flown over LA would have had at least 16 stars. In addition to the original 13 states, VT in 1791, KY in 1792, TN in 1796, and OH became a state in 1803, the same yr as the Louisiana Purchase, there would never have been a US flag w/ 15 anything over Louisiana.