Greets and welcome to Saturday, July 4, 2026.^. The traditional Independence Day is today, as well as, National Barbecued Spareribs Day, National Caesar Salad Day, National Country Music Day, and (how appropriate given the weather in the northeast), it’s National Sidewalk Egg Frying Day.

Today In History:
1802: The United States Military Academy at West Point opens.
1826: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the second and third U.S. presidents, both die on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration.
1831: John Calhoun becomes the first sitting U.S. vice president to resign.
1848: Workers lay the cornerstone of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
1855: Walt Whitman self-publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass.
1863: The Confederate garrison at Vicksburg surrenders to Union forces, splitting the Confederacy along the Mississippi River.
1884: France formally gives the Statue of Liberty to the United States in a ceremony in Paris.
1910: Boxer Jack Johnson defeats Jim Jeffries in the "Fight of the Century" in Reno, Nevada.
1939: Lou Gehrig delivers his "luckiest man" farewell speech at Yankee Stadium.
1946: The Philippines gains independence from the United States.
1976: The United States celebrates its bicentennial with nationwide festivities, including Operation Sail in New York harbor.
1987: A French court convicts Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," of crimes against humanity.
1997: NASA's Pathfinder probe lands on Mars and deploys the Sojourner rover.
 
Birthdays Today Include: Tom Cruise (Top Gun, Rain Man, Mission: Impossible); Franz Kafka, author (The Trial, The Metamorphosis); George M. Cohan, songwriter, playwright, and Broadway performer; Tom Stoppard, playwright (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare in Love); Jerzy Buzek, former Prime Minister of Poland; S. R. Nathan, former President of Singapore; Jean-Claude Duvalier, former President of Haiti; Li Keqiang, former Premier of China; Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and activist (Citizenfour, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists); Olivia Munn (“The Newsroom,” “Attack of the Show!,” X-Men: Apocalypse); Connie Nielsen (Gladiator, The Devil's Advocate); Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring, Aquaman, “Fargo”); Andrea Barber (“Full House,” “Fuller House”); Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange, “Marco Polo”); Kurtwood Smith (“That '70s Show,” RoboCop); Betty Buckley (“Eight Is Enough”).

And if today's your birthday, too, happy birthday!

* * *

If there's anything that genuinely amazes me about the 4th of July, it's how many Americans couldn't tell you what we're actually celebrating if their apple pie depended on it, even the ones who think they can.

What brings me to this pass? I got several huffy notes yesterday from people mad that I'd moved the date from the fourth to the third. Well, first of all, the move from the fourth to the third of July was not my doing, and anyone accusing me of that, seriously overestimates my pull in national affairs. Trust me, while I'd like to think I'm a fair writer, I'm simply not that powerful.

Not your fault, though. I regard this as the result of entrusting the narrative of our national history to the government schools, who have distorted our national history to the point where it’s barely recognizable.

Most people think July 4 is the day America became independent. Nope. Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776 — that's the vote that actually counted.

As I mentioned yesterday, John Adams felt so sure about that date that he told his wife Americans would celebrate July 2 "with pomp and parade... bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other." Bold prediction. Wrong date. Or maybe WE got it wrong.

Anyway, all July 4 commemorates is Congress finishing its edits and approving the text of the Declaration — explaining a decision they'd already made two days earlier. Most delegates didn't even sign the thing that day. The famous signing, the one with Hancock's ego-sized signature, didn't happen until weeks later, mostly on August 2. A few stragglers dawdled for months before adding their names. It wasn’t until August that they got all the signatures.

And neither the vote nor the signatures made us independent — not in any way that mattered at the time. Congress could declare whatever it liked; Britain still had to lose the argument. Nobody actually secured independence until the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Seven years of fighting, debt, and dread separated the declaration from the reality, so pace yourself before you call July 4 "the day we won."

One more thing: it's a declaration of separation, not a constitution, and people keep smushing the two together as if July 4 were when America got its laws and government sorted out. It didn't. The Declaration is a breakup letter to King George III — a list of grievances explaining why the colonies wanted out. Nobody drafted the actual machinery of American government, the Constitution, for another eleven years. In the briefest of terms, the Declaration was an announcement of a change in philosophical direction. These days, it’s helpful in revealing the mindset of its authors and signatories, but only by extension, useful in identifying what those same founders had in mind in writing what became the Constitution. Certainly, an earthshaking document in it’s own righ.

So here's what people are actually toasting, whether they know it or not: the finalization date on a press release announcing a decision already made, days before. Call it charming historical mess or a small national irony, depending on your mood — either way, it hasn't stopped a single hot dog from hitting the grill in 250 years.
 
And if you want the real kicker, the Fourth almost wasn't even the date we settled on by accident twice over. Congress didn't bother recording the actual vote for independence with much ceremony — no trumpets, no parchment moment — because everyone assumed the document itself, not the date of approval, would be the thing history remembered. Nobody in that room in Philadelphia — except perhaps John Adams, as I mentioned — was thinking about fireworks or three-day-weekend mattress sales.

Their biggest concern was their very survival. They were thinking about not getting hanged for treason, which, county-fair patriotism aside, was a live possibility for every single one of them, as history proved. I won’t copy the whole text, it’s a bit long, but to that last point, I offer the writing of Rush Limbaugh Jr. Well researched, it provides a better picture of what these men risked, better than you or I ever could.

So when you're standing at the grill this afternoon, watching a hot dog char under a flag that wasn't even the flag yet (that's a whole separate mess of a story), you're not really celebrating a date. You're celebrating the fact that a group of exhausted, terrified men signed their names to a piece of paper anyway, then spent seven miserable years finding out whether it would matter. That's worth a toast. Just maybe not the one everyone thinks they're making.

And now you'll have something to discuss around the BBQ and beer.

VIP members, Hit the heart, but I'm going to ask you to write a response to this post, containing memories from your own lives, on July 4 from past years. Particularly, I'm interested in hearing from those of us who have memories of our country's bicentennial back in 1976. 

Thought for the day: What you pay attention to becomes your direction.

Have fun, but be careful and mindful of what you are celebrating today. I'll see you tomorrow.

Editor's Note: It’s America’s 250th birthday! Help PJ Media celebrate the greatest nation in history by honoring its past, defending its present, and preserving its future with reporting you can trust.

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