Did you know the Star-Spangled Banner Flag was the only United States flag to have more than 13 stripes? It had 15, one stripe for each state in the Union, which now included Kentucky and Vermont. Congress realized it could not add a new stripe whenever a state joined the Union because the flag would start to look very different from the original design. So, Congress decided to go back to having 13 stripes to represent the original colonies and simply add a new star to the "constellation" for each state admitted to the Union.