II.3.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
3.1. Official names.
Benjamin Franklin popularized the concept of a political union in his famous "Join,
Or Die" cartoon in 1754. A generation later, the concept of unity became a reality.
Thomas Jefferson is credited as being the first person to come up with the name,
which he used while drafting the Declaration of Independence. In June 1776,
Jefferson’s draft version of the Declaration started with the following sentence: “A
Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in
General Congress assembled.” The final version of the Declaration starts with the date
July 4, 1776 and the following statement: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen
united States of America.”

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia had used the name “United Colonies” in a June

resolution to Congress: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved,” Lee wrote.

These thoughts are included in the Declaration’s final paragraph. “We, therefore, the
Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in
the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish
and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and
Independent States,” it reads.

On Monday, September 9, 1776, the Congress moved to approve some important

resolutions, including payments for the army. The fifth resolution read as follows:
“That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the
words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the
“United States.”
John C. Fitzpatrick from the Library of Congress, back in 1920, explained the origin
of “United Colonies” and the abbreviation “U.S.A.” in an article for the Daughters of
the American Revolution magazine.

Fitzpatrick said the words United Colonies were used by the Congress when it
appointed George Washington as commander in chief in June 1775. The abbreviation
U.S.A. had its origins as a way that government inspectors approved
official gunpowder. Fitzpatrick said the army needed to have inspectors verify that
gunpowder met standards, and it stamped “U.S.A.” on the casks as a mark, starting in
August 1776,

Also, the words “United States of America” appeared in the first draft of the Articles
of Confederation on July 8, 1776, as it was submitted to Congress. The Articles
weren’t ratified by the states until March 1781.

The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United

States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It
consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories,
nine Minor Outlying Islands and 326 Indian reservations.
The United States of America is a very powerful country. It is located in the
Americas, which is a region that includes South America and North America. It has
one constitution that serves as the supreme law of the land, with all states agreeing on
it and enforcing it. The country’s name makes it sound like it is united, yet it isn’t in
any way unified and there are many internal tensions between the states.
3.2. States and capital.
The United States is a federation of 50 states. Each of the U.S. states and the five
major territories of the United States has a capital city. Not every capital is the
cultural and economic center or the most populous city of its state, but every capital is
the seat of state government.
The capital of a state is where the state government and governor's office are located.
A city can be the capital if it was founded by the first settlement in that particular
region, has a lot of historical significance and generally a large population.

3.3. Official language

The U.S. has no official language at the federal level, but American English is the
most commonly used language. It is also the language spoken at home by the great
majority of Americans (approximately 78.5%). Languages other than English are also
spoken in homes across the country, especially Spanish (13.2% of the population),
according to the American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau;
these include indigenous languages and languages brought to the U.S. by people from
Europe, Africa, and Asia.
However, A significant number of the country's population speak language other than
English at home. While U.S. residents report that 21.5% speak a language other than
English at home, only 8.2% speak English less than "very well." Several other
languages, notably creoles and sign languages, have developed in the United States.
Approximately 430 languages are spoken or signed by the population, of which 177
are indigenous to the area. At least fifty-two languages formerly spoken in the
country's territory are now extinct.
English is the most common language spoken in the United States with approximately
239 million speakers. Spanish is spoken by approximately 35 million people. The
United States has the world's fourth largest Spanish-speaking population,
outnumbered only by Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina; other estimates put the
United States at over 50 million, second only to Mexico. Throughout
the Southwestern United States and Puerto Rico, long-established Spanish-speaking
communities coexist with large numbers of more recent Hispanophone immigrants.
Although many new Latin American immigrants are less than fluent in English,
nearly all second-generation Hispanic Americans speak English fluently, while only
about half still speak Spanish.
II.4. NATIONAL FLAG
4.1. History of United States’ Flag
As everyone knows, America was originally a British colony then rose to
independence under the command of the first president of the United States, George
Washington. At the time of the resistance, he asked Betsy Ross to sew a flag to
encourage the fighting spirit of the soldiers, this is the forerunner of the American flag
today.

The Flag Resolution of 1777

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which
stated: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red
and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new
Constellation." Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year.

The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement for the stars. The so-
called Betsy Ross Flag (with the thirteen stars arranged in a circle), although never an
official flag, is the oldest version of any United States flag to appear on any physical
relic: it is historically referenced in contemporary battlefield paintings by John
Trumbull and Charles Willson Peale, which depict the circular star arrangement.
Popular designs at the time were varied and most were individually crafted rather than
mass-produced. Given the scant archaeological and written evidence, it is unknown
which design was the most popular at that time.

The first flag resembling the modern stars and stripes was an unofficial flag
sometimes called the "Grand Union Flag", or "the “Continental Colors”. It consisted
of 13 red-and-white stripes, with the British Jack in the upper left-hand-corner. It first
appeared on December 3, 1775, when Continental Navy Lieutenant John Paul
Jones flew it aboard Captain Esek Hopkin's flagship Alfred in the Delaware River. It
remained the national flag until June 14, 1777. At the time of the Declaration of
Independence in July 1776, the Continental Congress would not legally adopt flags
with "stars, white in a blue field" for another year. The "Grand Union Flag", has
historically been referred to as the first national flag of the United States.

Later Flag Acts

The Stars and Stripes changed on May 1, 1795, when Congress enacted the second
Flag Resolution, which mandated that new stars and stripes be added to the flag when
new states were admitted to the Union. The first two new states were Vermont (1791)
and Kentucky (1792). (One such flag was the 1,260-square-foot (117-square-metre)
“Star-Spangled Banner,” made by Mary Pickersgill, that Francis Scott Key saw
at Fort McHenry in September 1814, which inspired him to write the patriotic poem
that later supplied the lyrics of the national anthem.) In 1818, after five more states
had been admitted, Congress enacted the third and last Flag Resolution, requiring that
henceforth the number of stripes should remain 13, the number of stars should always
match the number of states, and any new star should be added on the July 4 following
a state’s admission. This has been the system ever since. In all, from 1777 to 1960
(after the admission of Hawaii in 1959), there were 27 versions of the flag—25
involving changes in the stars only. An executive order signed by Pres. William
Howard Taft on October 29, 1912, standardized for the first time the proportions and
relative sizes of the elements of the flag; in 1934 the exact shades of colour were
standardized.

The current design of the U.S. flag is its 27th; the design of the flag has been modified
officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-
star version became official on July 4, 1959. The 50-star flag was ordered by then
president Eisenhower on August 21, 1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the
longest-used version of the U.S. flag and has been in use for over 62 years.

4.2. The Meaning of United State Flag

The Flag of the United States of America is a symbol of freedom and liberty to which
Americans pledge their allegiance. Standing at attention and facing the flag with their
right hand over the heart, they recite:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for
which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The flag’s 13 alternating red and white stripes represent the 13 original colonies. Its
50 white stars on a blue field represent the 50 states. 

The colors on the flag represent:

 Red: valor and bravery

 White: purity and innocence
 Blue: vigilance, perseverance, and justice

II.5. National Anthem

5.1. Birth Origin.

The music in the National Anthem of the United States was composed by John
Stafford Smith, a British composer. John Stafford Smith was born on March
30, 1750 and died on September 21, 1836. He was a church organist and also
a music researcher. John Stafford Smith was one of the first researchers to
carefully collect the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

However, John Stafford Smith is famous only because he wrote the music for
"To Anacreon in Heaven". This song was written in the mid-1760s, when
Smith was still a teenager. The lyrics were written by Ralph Tomlinson and it
became the official song of the Anacreontic Society, an association of
amateur lyricists in London. The song quickly became popular in the United
Kingdom and the United States.

After a British bombardment, amateur poet Francis Scott Key was so inspired
by the sight of the American flag still flying over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry
that he wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” on Sept. 14, 1814. Francis Scott
Key wrote the poem Defense of Fort McHenry to sing to the tune of "To
Anacreon in Heaven". The song is loved by many people in the United States.
In 1931, the United States Congress asked President Herbert Hoover to pass a
bill recognizing the song as the National Anthem of the United States. Song
with lyrics by Francis Scott Key and music written by John Stafford Smith.
The two authors passed away without knowing they had received that noble
honor.

5.2. Content.
Key’s song became especially popular and a powerful expression of patriotism during
the Civil War, with its emotional description of the enduring national flag, which had
become the symbol of the still-new nation. In 1861, devastated by the split of the
nation, poet Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a fifth verse to Key’s song. The verse was
included in many of the song’s printings throughout the war. The song was
recognized in 1889 by the U.S. Navy, who sang it when raising and lowering the flag,
and then it was proclaimed in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson to be the national
anthem of all the armed forces. However, it did not become the nation’s official
anthem until March 3, 1931.

Innumerable publications of the song through the years have shown variations in both
words and music. An official arrangement was prepared in 1917 by a committee that
included Walter Damrosch and John Philip Sousa for the army and navy. The third
stanza is customarily omitted out of courtesy to the British. Key’s original lyrics of
“The Star-Spangled Banner” are as follows:
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner—o long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto—“In God is our Trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.