The Fourth of July is America’s annual birthday party that unites people across the nation in celebrations that include parades, barbecues and fireworks.
The Dalles Chronicle staff would like to add to the festivities this year with a few fun and/or interesting facts about America’s early history and the the founding fathers who set up the greatest experiment in governance by the people that the world has ever known:
• Fifty-six men from the newly formed 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence. Pennsylvania had the most signers with nine; Rhode Island had the fewest with two.
• Contrary to popular belief, the Declaration was not signed by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, but on Aug. 2, 1776. However, all of the founders were not present and it was not until January 1777 when all 56 signers had finally put their names on the document.
• Of the founding fathers who became president, only George Washington did not go to college. John Adams graduated from Harvard, Thomas Jefferson from the College of William and Mary, and James Madison from Princeton.
• George Washington gave the shortest inauguration speech in American history on March 4, 1793. It was only 133 words long.
• Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, presidents and signers of the Declaration, died on July 4, 1826. America lost two of its great leaders on its 50th birthday.
• President James Monroe also died on July 4, five years after the deaths of Jefferson and Adams.
• Alexander Hamilton, who helped author the “Federalist Papers” to rally support for the U.S. Constitution, was killed by Aaron Burr in a duel in Weehawken, N. J. on July 12, 1804. His son, Philip, had died in a duel three years earlier in the same location.
• The U.S. Constitution has 4,440 words and is the oldest and shortest written constitution of any government in the world. It took 100 days to frame the document, which does not have the word “democracy” listed once.
• Because of his poor health, Benjamin Franklin needed help to sign the Constitution. As he did so, tears are reported to have streamed down his face.
• When the Constitution was signed, the U.S. population was four million. Philadelphia was the nation’s largest city, with 40,000 inhabitants.
• James Wilson originally proposed the president be chosen by popular vote, but the delegates agreed after 60 ballots on the Electoral College system. Although there have been 500 proposed amendments to change it, this system is still in place.
• George Washington and James Madison were the only presidents who signed the Constitution.
• Amendments to the Constitution that were proposed but never left the halls of Congress included: Making marriages between races illegal; an attempt to limit personal wealth to $1 million; renaming the nation the “United States of the Earth”; abolishing the Army and Navy; finding divorce to be illegal; forbidding of drunkenness in the U.S. and its territories; and limiting the income tax maximum for an individual to 25 percent.
• There have been 27 amendments to the Constitution; the first 10 known collectively as the Bill of Rights, which protected individual freedoms by placing limitation on the powers of government. The majority of the 17 later amendments expand individual civil rights protections.
• The U.S. was still undecided about the look of its flag in 1777, which was a cause of concern for Thomas Green, an American Indian who wanted to carry an official flag while traveling through dangerous territory to Philadelphia.
He asked for help from Congress, throwing in “three strings of wampum” (shell beads) as payment to sweeten the deal. A resolution was passed on June 14 of that year to finalize the flag as a creation with 13 stars and 13 stripes to represent the 13 colonies.
• The color white in the American flag stands for purity and innocence; the red for hardiness and valor, and blue for vigilance, perseverance, and justice.
• There have been 27 official versions of the U.S.flag, each with a different number of stars. When Alaska and Hawaii became states 49 and 50, President Eisenhower received thousands of ideas for an updated flag. Almost all of them were of a 50-star flag, including one from Robert G. Heft, a 17-year-old student at Lancaster (Ohio) High, who created the design for a class project. He was one of three to submit the version that was accepted and remains in use today.
• Francis Scott Key authored “The Star Spangled Banner,” our national anthem, in 1814. He was inspired to write the lyrics after watching British warships send a downpour of shells and rockets onto Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor for 25 hours.
The bombardment came only weeks after the British had attacked Washington, D.C., burning the capitol, treasury and president’s house.
"It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone," Key wrote later about watching the fierce firefight.
Throughout the night, he saw only red erupting in the night sky. Given the scale of the attack, Key was certain the British would win.
The hours passed slowly, but in the clearing smoke of "the dawn's early light" on September 14, he saw the American flag — not the British Union Jack — flying over the fort, announcing an American victory.
Happy 240th Birthday America! Celebrate well -- and wisely!
— The Dalles Chronicle
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