On June 27, the House of Representatives made history by approving a bill to grant statehood to Washington, D.C. Though the Democrat-backed measure is dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate, there was unintended irony in the timing of its passage in the House. It came six days shy of the current U.S. flag’s 60th birthday.

This is the longest stretch in American history that Old Glory has gone unchanged. As every schoolchild knows, the original flag had 13 stars and 13 stripes honoring the original 13 colonies-turned-states. Two more stars and stripes were added when New Hampshire and Kentucky joined the Union. In fact, it was a 15-star flag that Francis Scott Key saw flying over Fort McHenry in 1814, inspiring him to write the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”