45-Star Flag (1896)

Utah joined the Union on January 4, 1896.  The 23rd official rendition of the nation's flag, that bearing 45 stars, endured until 1908.

On February 15, 1898, the American battleship, USS Maine, was sunk in Havana, Cuba, involving the United States in the Spanish-American War.  This flag went into the war that lasted but 114 days.

President William McKinley was assassinated on September 14, 1901, the third President to be murdered in office.  Then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, a hero of the Spanish-American War, succeeded McKinley as President and this flag accompanied him in 1906 on the first foreign travel by a sitting President when Roosevelt visited Panama and Puerto Rico on board the battleship Louisiana.