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US flag turns 240 on June 14 — VIDEO

Staff Sgt. Robert Mattey and Airman 1st Class Michele Faiella, of the 99th Security Forces Squadron, raise the U.S. flag Tuesday, June 13 at Nellis Air Force Base.

Flag Day on Wednesday marks the day 240 years ago on June 14, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution that called for an official United States flag to “be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Flag Day as a national holiday in 1916, and in 1949 President Harry Truman signed an act from Congress that designated June 14th every year as National Flag Day.

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