Sunday · November 15, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19371776 Club

Pennsylvania is the first state to make Flag Day a legal holiday

The June 14 date has carried a presidential proclamation for twenty years, but no state had put it on the books until Harrisburg acts today.

By 1937, Flag Day had been a presidential proclamation for twenty years and a proposed national holiday for decades longer — but no state had put it on the books. Pennsylvania changed that, becoming the first state in the union to designate June 14 as an official state holiday, a distinction it still holds alone. The move formalized what advocates like Pittsburgh native William T. Kerr and Wisconsin schoolteacher Bernard Cigrand had spent the better part of a lifetime pushing toward…

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More from June 14
1777

Congress sets the flag: thirteen stripes, thirteen stars, "a new constellation"

The Flag Resolution names no designer, specifies no arrangement, and says nothing about which stripe color comes first.
1775

Congress creates a Continental Army; thirteen colonies, one command at last

Six weeks after Lexington and Concord, the patchwork of local militias gets a shared structure, a common supply, and a single authority over the fight against Britain.
1846

Thirty-three armed settlers seize Sonoma before dawn; California declares itself a republic

General Vallejo is taken prisoner in his own home, 170 government horses are seized, and a hand-sewn bear flag now flies over the barracks.
18631776 Club
In three days, Early and Johnson overwhelm ten Union forts, taking 4,000 prisoners, 23 guns, and 300 wagons at a cost of only 269 Confederate casualties.
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Read the full June 14 edition →Everything that happened on June 14 →
More from The World Wars
1945

The gadget detonates; 21,000 tons of TNT in an instant above the Jornada del Muerto

A plutonium device atop a 100-foot tower vaporizes the steel at 5:29 a.m., lighting the sky as far as Amarillo and melting desert sand to green glass.
1945

Churchill, Stalin, and Truman convene at Cecilienhof; a new Europe is on the table

Three months into his presidency, Truman sits down with allies to settle Germany's occupation zones, Poland's government, and where the Reich's eastern border will now fall.
1943

690 American bombers hit Rome; 9,125 bombs fall on San Lorenzo, killing 1,500

A freight yard and steel factory were the targets, but apartment blocks and a papal basilica took hits too; Pope Pius XII walks the rubble before day's end.
1944

Marines and soldiers storm Guam's beaches, opening a three-week fight to retake it

Two and a half years after its surrender, the island is under American naval gunfire again.
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