Declaration of Independence

Sportswave wishes our American neighbours a happy Independence Day on this 4th of July.

The US celebrates it’s 239th Birthday and will enjoy the festivities offered in Cities, town’s and small villages throughout the United States.

Facts you should know:

Most think of July 4, 1776, as the day that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation.

In reality it wasn’t July 4th that the Continental Congress decided to declare independence as it happened July 2, 1776.

And it wasn’t the day Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence (that was in June 1776).

Or the date on which the Declaration was delivered to Great Britain (that didn’t happen until November 1776). Or the date it was signed (that was August 2, 1776).

Why a holiday?

For the first 15 or 20 years after the Declaration was written, people didn’t celebrate as it was too new of a young nation.

By 1817, John Adams penned a letter that America seemed uninterested in its past, and after the War of 1812, the Federalist party began to come apart and the new parties of the 1820s and 1830s.

All seemed to consider themselves inheritors of Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans.

Printed copies of the Declaration began to circulate and all had the date July 4, 1776 listed at the top.

The deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826, may even have helped to promote the idea of July 4 as an important date to be celebrated.

Celebrations of the Fourth of July became more common as the years went on and in 1870, almost a hundred years after the Declaration was written, Congress first declared July 4 to be a national holiday.

HAPPY INDEPENCE DAY!!