US flag turns 240 on June 14 — VIDEO

By Keith Rogers Las Vegas Review-Journal

7 years ago

Staff Sgt. Robert Mattey, left, and Airman 1st Class Michele Faiella, of the 99th Security Forces Squadron, raise the U.S. flag Tuesday, June 13, 2017 at Nellis Air Force Base. Flag Day on Wednesday marks the day 240 years ago on June 14, 1777 of the Second Continental Congress resolution that called for an official United States flag. Keith Rogers Las Vegas Review-Journal

A display of U.S. Air Force Thunderbird jets is silhouetted Tuesday, June 13, 2017, by the morning sun near the main entrance checkpoint at Nellis Air Force Base. Keith Rogers Las Vegas Review-Journal

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.