Did you know that the current flag of US has been designed by a 17-year-old? 

The current Indian flag was designed by Indian freedom fighter Pingali Venkayya. But do you know who designed the US flag that the superpower is currently using? A 17-year-old high school student, Robert Heft. And there is an interesting story behind how his school project became the national flag of the United States.   

Evolution of the US flag 
Since its origin in 1777, the American flag has been revised over two dozen times and the current one designed by Heft in 1959, is the twenty-seventh official flag of the United States. The original flag featured 13 stripes along with 13 stars. The current flag still features 13 stripes but it now has 50 stars.  

The origin story 
As already mentioned, Heft designed the flag for a school project. The project was – to design a new version of the American flag.  

For his project, Heft chose to arrange the fifty white stars on a blue background in alternating horizontal rows. Five rows had six stars, and four rows had five stars. Seven alternating horizontal red and six white stripes completed the flag, representing the original thirteen colonies. The flag's three colours, red, white, and blue, represented courage, purity, and justice respectively. It took Heft 12.5 hours to sew the flag together.  

But even after so much hard work, Heft didn’t score a perfect grade in this project. His teacher gave him a B- and Heft was left disappointed.  

So, he went ahead and discussed his score with the teacher who jokingly said that if the US Congress selected his design, his grade would be changed to an A. Heft submitted his design to Congress and to the surprise of both, Congress chose Heft’s design. Heft’s grade was changed later to an A. Not only this, shortly after submitting his design to Congress, it was selected as the new American flag.  

How did it become the national flag 
Heft’s 50-star flag was officially displayed for the first time at Fort Henry in Baltimore, Mayland in 1960. After that the US started displaying the new flag rather than its earlier variant. 

What happened to Heft? 
After graduating from college, Heft became a high school teacher and later a college professor. He was also the mayor of Napoleon, Ohio, for 28 years. After years of combating diabetes, Heft died in 2009 at the age of 67, from a heart attack.