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Josh Sundquist shares some charts and graphs about fireworks, pie, and other Independence Day traditions. -via Buzzfeed
Who looks more patriotically American: Superman, Captain America, or Wonder Woman? Take a close look at a gallery of cosplay photographs of these and other heroes posted to celebrate the Fourth of July at Geeks Are Sexy and decide for yourself! Link
Nyan Cat gets a makeover for the Fourth of July! Music by John Philip Sousa. -via Buzzfeed
Previously: “Stars and Stripes Forever” on trombone, by the Muppets, and barbershop quartet style.
When we Americans are young children, we are taught the basics of our nation’s founding. But often those stories get shortened into easy-to-recall sound bites that don’t tell the whole story. Most of the historical “facts” you remember are oversimplifications of a more nuanced story. For example, I bet you thought the Declaration of Independence was adopted in the fourth day of July in 1776.
Independence Day is celebrated two days too late. The Second Continental Congress voted for a Declaration of Independence on July 2, prompting John Adams to write his wife, “I am apt to believe that [July 2, 1776], will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.”
Adams correctly foresaw shows, games, sports, buns, bells, and bonfires—but he got the date wrong. The written document wasn’t edited and approved until the Fourth of July, and that was the date printers affixed to “broadside” announcements sent out across the land. July 2 was soon forgotten.
Learn other historic tales that were different from what you recall in this article at National Geographic News. Link
The original Declaration of Independence
To help you celebrate the Fourth of July a few years ago, we posted a list of 5 Obscure Facts About the Declaration of Independence, namely:
This year, let's add 5 more neat facts:
Historians have always wondered about a smear under the word "citizens" in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence. They've wondered if Jefferson had written "our fellow patriots" or "our fellow residents." Using a spectral imaging technology, researchers revealed the truth: Jefferson had a Freudian slip and wrote "subjects" instead of citizens.
"Seldom can we re-create a moment in history in such a dramatic and living way," Library of Congress preservation director Dianne van der Reyden said at Friday's announcement of the discovery.
"It's almost like we can see him write 'subjects' and then quickly decide that's not what he wanted to say at all, that he didn't even want a record of it," she said. "Really, it sends chills down the spine." (Source)
You'd think that the original Declaration of Independence - the very document that founded the United States of America - would be treated with respect. Well, it is now. It is stored in special, bullet-proof encasement made of titanium with gold plated frames and filled with inert argon gas to prevent decomposition, but that wasn't the case right after it was signed (see the faded and beat up copy above).
According to historian Pauline Maier, who wrote American
Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
It wasn't taken care of very well in the early years. It was sort of rolled up, carried around with the Second Continental Congress. And then the State Department kept it, and if people came, they'd pull it out and show it to them. None of this, you know, enormous--What do they call it?--at the Library of Congress--argon caskets, you know, these heavy metal, glass cases that have gas in them without oxygen so that the documents don't decompose. And the Library of Congress keeps them sort of in a refrigerator. It's the most precious documents--none of that.
I mean, they just pulled it out and showed it to you, the real thing. And then they got tired of pulling it out, so they pasted it up on a wall in what was then the patent office, and there it remained for 30 years near a very bright window. It faded. And they spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what they could do with it. Modern preservation techniques are really a quite recent development. (Source)
Indeed, there is a handprint in the bottom left corner of the Declaration of Independence. How it got there isn't known, but historians think that it was because it was handled so casually in the early days of the Republic.
You can download a high-resolution image of the Declaration of Independence at Archives.org's Charters of Freedom: Link
It wasn't written on hemp either, despite the insistence of your pot-smoking friend. The Declaration of Independence was written on parchment, which is basically treated animal skin (typically sheepskin). It was inked with iron gall ink, which is made by combining fermented oak marble galls with ferrous sulfate.
Photo: U.S.
National Archives and Records Administration
Yes, there actually was something written in the back of the Declaration of Independence. But instead of an invisible map like in the Nicholas Cage blockbuster movie National Treasure, it only said "Original Declaration of Independence, dated 4th July 1776" at the bottom of the document, upside down.
Image: xenonofarcticus [Flickr], modified from bacon photo by Yogma
Just in time for Fourth of July, here’s American Bacon by Chris Hanson of Pocket Bacon. Who says that pork products can’t be patriotic?
If the American Bacon above isn’t for you, then perhaps this is more your alley: a collection of Fourth of July covers of The Saturday Evening Post throughout the decades: Link
Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
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