It’s the stuff of elementary school pageants and patriotic legend: In the capital of a new nation at war with its colonial rulers, a widowed seamstress made history when she fashioned the first American flag. Her name was Betsy Ross. Although seamstress Betsy Ross is often credited as the maker of the first American flag, there’s no evidence that’s true. The myth was born during a wave of flag fervor that swept the nation nearly a hundred years after the Revolutionary War.

Source: National Geographic