Go out to your backyard tonight and set off those fireworks a couple of days early. When your irate neighbors open their windows and lean out to ask you what the heck you think you’re doing, you can give them a little history lesson.
The Continental Congress actually voted to make America independent on July 2, 1776. That was the day the delegates adopted the resolution, presented by Richard Henry Lee, that the colonies were in fact “free and independent States.” No wonder John Adams assumed independence was settled when he wrote to Abigail on July 3.
The Fourth of July, therefore, is not the “original” Independence Day, but the anniversary of the formal acceptance of the Declaration of Independence by Congress. And, of course, it’s also the anniversary of our victory over the aliens.
Here are a few other independence-related myths from HNN. Anyway, it’s the independence that counts, right?
(Independence Hall photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Past in the Present 