Slate: False Flag
Slate: False Flag. “[Bob] Heft’s story—which many reputable sources cite as a historical fact—is false. While he did make a 50-star flag for his history class, and [Stanley] Pratt may even have agreed to change the grade if it were accepted by the government, everything else in the usual account is a lie that Heft embellished for nearly half a century. If the origin story of the nation’s most recognizable symbol is untrue, it illustrates how misinformation about the American past can be deliberately invented and uncritically perpetuated. The real question is how and why Heft did it—and why so many people wanted to believe that it was the truth.”