This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.

I'm Lizzie Peabody.

Growing up in America, there are some nuggets of history you just seem to pick up.

George Washington cut down a cherry tree, but he couldn't tell a lie about it.

A young Abe Lincoln walked six miles to return a few pennies to a woman he accidentally

overcharged.

For me, I always liked the story of Betsy Ross.

I can still imagine the page in my fourth grade social studies book.

Betsy Ross is sitting in her living room, wearing a big poofy dress, a bonnet on her head.

The caption says she's in Philadelphia, 1776.

America is in the middle of a revolution.

And in walks George Washington and the Flag Committee of the Continental Congress.

This is Mark Liebson, historian and author of the book Flag, an American biography.

And they asked her to make a flag for this new nation.

And she says, yes, I can do that.

And Betsy gets to sewing, cutting strips of red and white silk, snipping and stitching

away.

A few days later, Washington and the Flag Committee come knocking again.

And from behind her skirt, Betsy Ross pulls a masterpiece of a flag.

It's got 13 stripes, alternating red and white.

George says, okay, I like what you did there.

And then Ross is like, yeah, but check this out.

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