June 14 is Flag Day and it is also the 175th anniversary of the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt, in Sonoma, where foreigners, mostly American and some Californios, led by William B Ide rose up against the Mexican government of California and declared a California Republic. Some time around this date, William L Todd, nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, created the original Bear Flag, which the rebels raised on a flagpole in the Sonoma Plaza on 15-June-1846.
The California Republic faded away when the rebels learned that the United States had declared war on Mexico in June. The original Bear Flag burned in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire in San Francisco. The California state flag is based on the Bear Flag.
I took the photo of the second Bear Flag monument in Sonoma Plaza on 08-April-2010. I have not been able to find the name of the sculptor.
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