Welcome to the Saturday edition of The Conversation U.S.’s Daily newsletter.

Growing up in Philadelphia, I thought I knew the story of Betsy Ross – she’s the Philly seamstress who sewed the first “star-spangled banner” sometime around the nation’s founding 250 years ago, right?

But Marla Miller, a UMass Amherst historian of early American craftswomen, says there’s no evidence that Ross made the first flag – and yet her historical significance is richer and deeper.

Ross found herself widowed in 1776 just as Philadelphia braced for British forces. The U.S. needed to build a navy and new flags representing the Americans. Ross was one of many women who became a government contractor to stitch flags, uniforms, tents, knapsacks and more for the independence movement.

So, Ross did indeed make flags, and she had a decades-long career in flagmaking. But her legacy, as Miller explains it, was never about designing one flag but about producing many – and being one of thousands of working women across America whose wartime labor helped build a nation.

This week we also liked stories about how scientists decipher the language of dolphins, a study showing how college students interact with AI chatbots during writing assignments, and a philosopher on whether policies that “nudge” people toward certain actions are rational or not.

One last note: We have curated some of our most insightful articles about the current war into a special e-book. Donate to support our work and we will send you that e-book as a special gift. Every gift of $5, $50 or $500 makes it possible to bring you research-based journalism, every day. Thank you.