Happy 250th Anniversary!

Anybody remember this?

I was just a kid. I wore an Uncle Sam costume my mom made, and my sister was Lady Liberty, complete with torch. My dad helped me rig up this old heavy wood-sided cart, and I painted each side with American flags. The cart was on hard rubber casters and didn’t move too good, but I…

— William M Briggs - Statistician to the Stars! (@FamedCelebrity) July 2, 2026

I remember community celebrations on ordinary Independence Days, too. How about you?

In particular, a person who will remain nameless here (with whom I had gone to a community program and who was featured on that program) accidentally stepped off the stage into a tub of watermelons at the park. Memorable!

Keeping Track of History

Frank Luntz:

This is an incredible account that posts moments from American history as they happened 250 years ago from the date of each tweet.

Thomas Jefferson submits the final draft of his Declaration of Independence to Continental Congress. pic.twitter.com/Z8xWYwU94x

— 1776 Live (@250YearsAgoLive) June 28, 2026

Go to the main page for the latest tweets from this account, but older ones are also interesting.

For some unknown reason, Thomas Jefferson is preoccupied this morning with recording the temperature.

He writes that upon awaking at 6 AM, the temperature is a pleasant 68.0 degrees Fahrenheit, but that it is creeping up toward 70.

On his way to Congress, Jefferson purchases a… pic.twitter.com/tdRojvAdol

— 1776 Live (@250YearsAgoLive) July 4, 2026

Continental Congress has convened for the day at the Pennsylvania State House.

The doors are shut and the windows shaded to keep the sun out as much as possible - and to keep out eavesdroppers and spies.

The delegates are stifling on the stuffy inside and we, the public, are… pic.twitter.com/i8X334eyQx

— 1776 Live (@250YearsAgoLive) July 4, 2026

The Cherokee Indians, allied with the British, launch a massive attack all along the western frontier, from Virginia to Georgia, against Patriot-held villages.

Citizens flee their homes in terror. pic.twitter.com/VEmwpIIkWq

— 1776 Live (@250YearsAgoLive) July 1, 2025

The tweets don't just address American history:

Catherine the Great ends her affair with advisor Grigory Potemkin after the love “lost its passion.” pic.twitter.com/CKwr5aTqZO

— 1776 Live (@250YearsAgoLive) July 3, 2026

Where do we go from here?

Year 251 Wilfred M. McClay

The 250th has once again brought the Declaration back into view, and much good can come of that fact, if we are willing and able to embrace it fully, courageously, with a willingness to hear what it is telling us. Let me try to suggest in what follows some of the ways the Declaration can be used as a tool to correct, reorient, and sharpen our sense of what is foundational to our way of life. Some of this work will involve correcting inaccurate notions of what the Declaration actually said.

First of all, it is vitally important to remember that the Declaration began by referring to the colonists for whom it spoke as a “people,” who were “entitled” to a “separate and equal status” by the laws of nature and “Nature’s God.” Those words formed the basis for all that follows. It was the “peoplehood” of the Americans, their sense of belonging together in their own separate land, that formed the basis for their declaring their independence. It did not come from their acceptance of some misty notion of America as “an idea” whose time has come, and which happens to have touched down from the heavens first in this particular place.

That the Declaration has universal implications, and has found favor all over the world as one of the great charters of human liberty, is certainly true; but it does not change the immediate context in which the Declaration emerged: as an expression of an important moment of self-recognition in the life of this particular political community. With the Declaration we declared ourselves to ourselves, proposing that we were now a distinct people among the peoples of the earth. “Something we were withholding made us weak,” wrote Robert Frost, “Until we found out that it was ourselves / We were withholding from our land of living.” The Declaration laid a foundation for the new thing that we were becoming. It was a declaration grounded in national solidarity, in the right of a people to define themselves and govern themselves.

After you read (or listen to) this piece, you might want to read Buck Throckmorton's Morning Rant from yesterday again, and listen to the music at the end. The rant also suggests the right of a people to define themselves and govern themselves. And the rant gives meaning to the music.

Weekend

Powerline has some good posts for the weekend, including their annual post on the address by Calvin Coolidge celebrating the 150 anniversary. The address features the Declaration of Independence.

And:

Steven Hayward: The Week in Pictures: Sophia and the 4th

Move over Sydney Sweeney: America has a new heroine perfectly fitted to the July 4 semiquincentennial today: She is Sophie Cunningham, Sophie being an adaptation of sophia, the ancient Greek word for wisdom. And sort of like Helen of Troy, our Sophie has launched a thousand memes. So as we celebrate today the sophia of our founding, let Sophie help point the way!

Music

Hope I got the right performance, Hadrian.

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, June 27, Let's go forward, not backward or sideways, in medicine!

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:00 AM

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