American History, Flags & Mottos, Explained

Our founding-era designs point back to real events: a tax, a flag, a cartoon, a reply under fire. These explainers tell each story and separate the record from the legends that grew up around it.

1765: where it started

• What does 1765 mean?
  1765 is the year the Stamp Act lit the fuse: the Sons of Liberty, the first united No, and why we wear the year the decision was made.
• What was the Stamp Act of 1765?
  The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed nearly every printed page in the colonies and lit the fuse of revolution. What it was and why it still matters.
• Who were the Sons of Liberty?
  The documented story of the men of 1765: the Loyal Nine, Samuel Adams, the Liberty Tree, and the myths the record won't back.
• The No Stamp Act design, decoded
  The Stamp Act of 1765, the skull-and-crossbones fatal stamp, and the Sons of Liberty, decoded element by element.

Flags and symbols

• The Appeal to Heaven flag
  The pine-tree flag's real history: Locke's "appeal to heaven," Washington's cruisers of 1775, and what the flag means today.
• The Sons of Liberty flag
  Nine vertical stripes, five red and four white: what they counted, where the flag flew in 1767, and what is record versus legend.
• The Betsy Ross flag and its 13 stars
  The 1777 Flag Resolution, what the 13 stars meant, and the honest truth about whether Betsy Ross really made the first flag.
• Join, or Die
  Benjamin Franklin's 1754 snake cartoon, how it became a Revolution icon, and what United, Or Die means worn today.
• Come and Take It: Gonzales, 1835
  The borrowed cannon, the Old Eighteen, the homemade flag, and the first shots of the Texas Revolution.

Words under fire

• "I have not yet begun to fight"
  Did John Paul Jones say it? The 1779 battle, every version of his reply, and how the famous line reached us.
• With your shield, or on it
  The Spartan mother's command explained, plus the real history of molon labe at Thermopylae and what both mean worn today.

Faith and the founding

• Was there a Mass at Valley Forge?
  No Mass at Valley Forge is documented. The real record is better: Washington's Pope's Day ban, his 1774 vespers, the St. Mary's Te Deums, the 1790 letter.
• Did George Washington die a Catholic?
  The deathbed-conversion legend against the eyewitness record: what Tobias Lear saw, what Bishop Carroll wrote, and the real Catholic founders.
• The semiquincentennial, explained
  America's 250th anniversary, July 4, 2026: what it commemorates and why 1765 is where the story begins.

Shop the designs: American Revolution shirts · Patriotic shirts

More guides: Catholic symbols, saints and Latin mottos · Buying and gift guides