Fourth of July Facts & Fiction by K. Denise Holmberg

"In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity." John Quincy Adams

I love to explore the backstory of major events in history. This is what I discovered about our Independence Day that we celebrate on July 4th.

Be sure to read more quotes from the signers at the end. 

What DIDN’T Happen on the First Fourth of July?

*The Continental Congress did not declare independence. (They did that on July 2nd.)

*Thomas Jefferson did not pen the first draft of the Declaration of Independence on this day. (June 1776)

*The Declaration of Independence was not delivered to Great Britain. (November 1776)

*The American Revolution did not start. (Under full swing since April 1775.)

*The Declaration of Independence was not even signed on this day. (August 2, 1776)

So What DID Happen on the First Fourth of July?

*Edits and changes … that’s it. After two days of debate (starting on July 3rd) the final agreement on the exact language of the Declaration was ratified and adopted on July 4, 1776 by our Founding Fathers.

"Hot & humid outside, stifling in chambers" is what historians
report thanks to Thomas Jefferson's new toy: a thermometer.
*The first copies of the Declaration were printed the night of July 4th, 1776 and dated as such. They circulated through our new nation and that's the date people remembered.

*Only John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress, placed his famous signature on the document on the 4th. (He was considered a major rabble rouser by the British government ... go Hancock!)

If we celebrated on the date all of our Founding Father's signed … our day of independence would be August 2nd.

Fireworks

Congress encouraged the use of fireworks on the 4th of July as early as 1777, even though
Independence Day did not become a National Holiday until 1870 ... almost a century later.

According to the Virginia Gazette, 18 July 1777:

Congress led the way for the encouragement of fireworks on the Fourth of July by authorizing a display on July 4, 1777, in Philadelphia, a year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks, which began and concluded with thirteen rockets on the commons.

The Gazette needed to do some fact checking. They incorrectly reported the date of the signing.

High Stakes

Many citizens waited outside the State House to hear the decision regarding the approval of our Declaration of Independence. It was an act of treason for the men of the Second Continental Congress. Such action against Britain was punishable by death and loss of all property (well, you can't take it with you).

July 4th 1776 was a solemn affair with only church bells ringing in Philadelphia to announce the news.

 A new day of independence had come.

Numerous struggles had led to it, countless battles would follow, but the united colonies would become free and independent states.

Quotes from our Founding Fathers:

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God." John Adams

"Let us enter on this important business under the idea that we are Christians on whom the eyes of the world are now turned… Let us earnestly call and beseech Him, for Christ’s sake, to preside in our councils. . . . We can only depend on the all powerful influence of the Spirit of God, Whose Divine aid and assistance it becomes us as a Christian people most devoutly to implore. Therefore I move that some minister of the Gospel be requested to attend this Congress every morning . . . in order to open the meeting with prayer." Elias Boudinot

"Grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, He had conferred on my beloved country in her emancipation and on myself in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of 89 years, and to survive the fiftieth year of independence, adopted by Congress on the 4th of July 1776, which I originally subscribed on the 2d day of August of the same year and of which I am now the last surviving signer." Charles Carroll

"Governments could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source: from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth." John Dickinson


Happy Fourth of July!!!
Blessings,
Denise




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