Setting the record straight about the 4th of July and a few more American history fallacies..........

Never mind what you really thought!

~History tells us that America gained independence on the fourth of July but the Second Continental Congress officially declared America's independence on July 2, 1776.  Thomas Jefferson was the principle drafter of the document which was written on a laptop, well a laptop back then.

Laptop 1700s.

~The first Independence Day was celebrated on July 8, 1776 in Philadelphia.  There was a parade and guns were fired into the air.

~Can you believe George Washington had no idea American Independence was gained until the 9th of July?  And Georgia did not know until August 10, 1776, and the Brits learned the news on August 30, 1776.

~Oddly enough, The Declaration of Independence not signed by any of the Founding Fathers at all in July 1776.  The signing began with a ceremony on August 2, 1776 but several signatures were still missing until January 1777.  John Hancock did not sign until November 1776.  There were 56 men from 13 colonies who signed The Declaration of Independence with 8 of the 56 signers being born in the British Isles:  John Witherspoon, James, Wilson, Matthew Thornton, George Taylor, James Smith, Robert Morris, Francis Lewis, and Button Gwinnett.

~History also tells the tale of the Liberty Bell was cracked on July 4, 1776 when the patriots rang the bell in celebration of the great news, however, turns out the bell did not crack that day because no one ever rang it!  The famous crack in the Liberty Bell was due to poor casting of the bell initially, and it cracked upon arrival to Philadelphia in 1752.  The Liberty Bell was named The Liberty bell by abolitionists.

~Interesting factoid both John Adams (2nd) and Thomas Jefferson (3rd) died on the 4th of July, 1826 within hours of each other.  President James Monroe  (5th) also died on the 4th of July , 1931.
~President Calvin Coolidge (30th) was born on the July 4th, 1872.

~You will probably never believe that The Star-Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key came from a
song that drunks on a boat made up in which the melody stayed the same but the lyrics were changed.  The original song about how much men love wine and women.

~Did George Washington and a small committee actually have Betsy Ross sew the first ever American Flag?  Still over 150 years later, this very idea is still taught in public school history but experts say this is also a fallacy.  Betsy Ross certainly did sew many American Flags in her time but just not the original flag.  It is believed that Mary Young-Pickersgill from Baltimore is responsible for the original flag.

~American as apple pie, or not?  Turns out people in England had been eating apple pie long before the colonist in America.

~Sorry guys but it also appears that the English were also responsible for baseball.

So now, you know!