Five hidden messages in the American flag

Until 1912, there was no set design for the Stars and Stripes. And so, hidden in older versions of the flag, its makers laid hints of the country's history and quest for identity.

The US national anthem

Oh, say! can you see by the dawn's early light / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming / Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight / O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave / O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Aptly - given its national anthem is about the flag - the Stars and Stripes is a key part of America's identity. It hangs in classrooms and in courtrooms, on state buildings and suburban porches.

It has been the national flag since 1777. And the flag that inspired the anthem was enormous. Measuring 30 by 42 feet (9 x 12.8m), it was raised over Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Its 15 broad stripes and 15 bright stars inspired Francis Scott Key to write The Star-Spangled Banner, the song that became the national anthem.
But for more than half the flag's 234-year history, there was no official design - the arrangement and appearance of the stars was up to the maker. And that, says art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, makes it an artwork in a way other nations' flag are not.
"It's to do with this peculiar fact that they didn't standardise the design, so you could express different things within each flag," he says.
"Generally speaking, a flag is a flag - it's like a number plate or logo, it always stays the same. But in America it didn't, which left room for people to express their creativity or their bile or their sadness."
So what are the hidden messages in these notable flags?