Thursday was Flag Day, marking yet another birthday of the flag of the United States — the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, the Star-Spangled Banner.

About a year after the appearance of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes pattern for the national flag.

The first Flag Day was celebrated in 1877, the 100th birthday of the flag. In 1885, Wisconsin schoolteacher B.J. Cigrand began celebrating the flag’s birthday and advocating an official Flag Day. The movement gained strength through the years. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation making June 14 Flag Day, and in 1949, President Harry Truman signed legislation officially creating Flag Day as our national day of commemoration.