Historical flags
Flags and standards from history, from the Roman eagle to the Jolly Roger and the first flags of the United States: what each one was, who carried it, and what the record shows against the legend.
Test yourself: Historical flags quiz
Pirate flags
- Jolly RogerThe black flag of the pirates of the early 1700s. The name now means one design, a white skull above two crossed bones on black, which pirates hoisted to make a ship surrender without a fight.
- Blackbeard’s flagA black flag with a horned skeleton holding an hourglass and a spear aimed at a bleeding heart, sold today as the flag of Edward Teach, “Blackbeard” (died 1718). No record from his lifetime describes it; the design was first drawn in 1912 and given to Blackbeard decades later.
- Calico Jack’s flagA black flag with a white skull above two crossed cutlasses, sold today as the flag of the pirate John Rackham, “Calico Jack”, condemned in Jamaica in 1720. No record of his time describes a black flag of his; the design first appears in a German book of 1959.
- Bartholomew Roberts’s flagThe jack of the Welsh pirate Bartholomew Roberts (killed 1722): a black flag showing Roberts himself holding a flaming sword, standing on two skulls marked ABH and AMH, for “a Barbadian’s and a Martinican’s Head”.
- Emanuel Wynne’s flagA black flag with a white skull, crossed bones and an hourglass, reported in 1700 on the ship of the French pirate Emanuel Wynne. It is the earliest skull-and-crossbones pirate flag on record.
Ancient and medieval standards
- VexillumThe vexillum was a Roman military flag: a square of cloth hung from a crossbar at the top of a spear. It was the standard of the maniples and of the cavalry, and its name came to cover any Roman standard except the legion’s eagle.
- AquilaThe aquila was the eagle standard of a Roman legion, carried on a pole by the aquilifer. Pliny the Elder records that Gaius Marius made the eagle the only standard of the legions in his second consulship, which Smith’s dictionary dates to 104 BC.
- SPQRSPQR is the abbreviation of Senatus Populusque Romanus, “the Senate and the Roman people”, the formula Latin inscriptions used for the Roman people as a state. It is still on the coat of arms of the city of Rome.
- Draco standardThe draco was a dragon standard: a dragon’s head on a pole, with a body of cloth that filled with wind and hissed as the riders moved. Arrian called it Scythian; by the later Roman empire each cohort and the emperor himself rode behind dragons.
- LabarumThe labarum was the military standard of Constantine the Great, made after the vision he reported before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312: a gilded spear with a crossbar, a square jewelled banner hanging from it, and the Chi-Rho inside a gold wreath at the top.
- Derafsh KavianiThe Derafsh Kaviani, “the standard of Kava” or “of the kings”, was the legendary royal banner of the Sasanian kings of Iran. In the Shahnameh it began as a blacksmith’s leather apron raised on a spear; the Arab army that defeated the Sasanians at Qadesiya, about 637, captured it.
- OriflammeThe oriflamme was the sacred war banner of the kings of France, kept at the abbey of Saint-Denis north of Paris: a red silk banner on a gilded lance, its end split into trailing tails. Louis VI first carried it to war in 1124; it was raised for the last time in the fifteenth century.
- Cross of BurgundyThe Cross of Burgundy is a red saltire of two roughly cut branches on a white field, the badge of the dukes of Burgundy that became Spain’s military flag in the sixteenth century. It flew over Spain’s ships and forts in the Americas and the Philippines until the red and gold flag replaced it from 1785.
Early American flags
- Betsy Ross flagA version of the first Stars and Stripes: thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen white stars in a circle on blue, named after the Philadelphia flag maker Betsy Ross. The story that she sewed the first flag in 1776 was first made public by her grandson in 1870, and no record from the time confirms it.
- Grand Union flagThe first American flag of thirteen red and white stripes, with the British Union Flag in the canton where the stars later went. The Continental Navy flew it from December 1775, and it remained the unofficial flag until Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes on 14 June 1777.
- Bennington flagA flag of thirteen stripes, white at the top and bottom, with “76” under an arch of stars in the blue canton, long said to have flown at the Battle of Bennington in 1777. The Bennington Museum, which owns it, dates it to between 1812 and 1830, because it is made entirely of cotton.
- Serapis flagThe ensign John Paul Jones flew on the captured British warship Serapis at Texel in the Dutch Republic in 1779, with stripes of red, white and blue and thirteen eight-pointed stars on blue. It was made to the description Benjamin Franklin and John Adams had given of the American flag, and the Dutch recorded it in a sketch.
- Appeal to Heaven flagA white flag with a green pine tree and the motto “An Appeal to Heaven”, flown from 1775 by the schooners George Washington fitted out to intercept British ships, and made the colours of the Massachusetts navy in April 1776.
Former national flags
- Flag of the Soviet UnionThe state flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: a red flag with a gold hammer and sickle and a gold-edged red star in the upper corner by the pole. It was set by the constitution of 1924 and came down over the Kremlin for the last time on 25 December 1991.
- Flag of YugoslaviaThe state flag of socialist Yugoslavia: horizontal stripes of blue, white and red with a red five-pointed star edged in gold in the centre. The constitution of 1946 set it, and it lasted until the federation broke up in the 1990s.
- Flag of East GermanyThe state flag of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany): black, red and gold horizontal stripes with the state emblem, a hammer and a pair of compasses in a wreath of grain, in the centre. A law of 1 October 1959 added the emblem; the flag went out of use at German unification on 3 October 1990.
- Ottoman flagThe national flag of the Ottoman Empire in its last century: a red flag with a white crescent and a white star. Red flags with the crescent and an eight-pointed star date from Sultan Selim III at the end of the 18th century; the star became five-pointed under Abdülmecid I, and the Republic of Türkiye kept the flag.
- Yellow Dragon FlagThe national flag of China under the Qing dynasty: a yellow flag with a blue dragon and a red disc. It began as a triangular flag for government ships in the 1860s; the Regulations for the Beiyang Fleet of 1888 made it rectangular, and it flew until the dynasty fell.
About historical flags
Flags and standards whose story is history: what each one was, who carried it, and what the record shows against the legend. The study of flags takes its name, vexillology, from the Latin vexillum, a flag or military ensign, and the pages run from Rome’s standards, the Vexillum, the Aquila and SPQR, through the Oriflamme of the French kings to the Jolly Roger, the first flags of the United States and the flags of states that no longer exist, such as the Soviet Union’s.
Legend and record
Many of these flags are better known from later retellings than from their own time, and each page says which is which. No record from Blackbeard’s time describes his flag as a horned skeleton holding an hourglass and a spear pointed at a bleeding heart; the design now called Blackbeard’s flag was drawn long after him. The story that Betsy Ross made the first Stars and Stripes was first told by her grandson, William Canby, in a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1870. And the Bennington flag, long said to have flown in 1777, is dated 1812 to 1830 by the Bennington Museum, which holds it.
Sources
- Vexillology (Online Etymology Dictionary), Internet Archive copy, 1 April 2023, Online Etymology Dictionary
- Flag (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica), Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 10, Encyclopædia Britannica, via Wikisource, Roman standards
- The truth about Blackbeard’s Flag, Kevin P. Duffus, Ocracoke Observer, 18 August 2021, Ocracoke Observer, article text
- How Betsy Ross Became Famous, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “How Betsy Ross Became Famous: Oral tradition, nationalism, and the invention of history”, Common-place, Common-place: The Journal of Early American Life, article text and author note
- Did She or Didn’t She?, Historic Philadelphia, Inc., “Did She or Didn’t She?” (Betsy Ross House story page), Historic Philadelphia, Inc., page text and captions
- Bennington Flag (Bennington Museum), Bennington Museum, online collection, object record A60, “Flag” (Bennington or “Fillmore” flag), Bennington Museum, Year range; Description; Width and Height; Information
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research