Does America celebrate its independence on the wrong day?

Wow, smart lady you are! I have never heard any debate on that question.

As a new country that didn't know if the next day would be it's last. Our forefathers most likely were not too concerned with dates. Other than when the king received his copy of the declaration. That would officially kick the great experiment off. And of course, unleash his wrath. Remember at that time, the signers were considered to be riffraff, rebels, misguided colonials, etc. OH, and tax dodgers!

Anyway July 4th is as good a day as any. Long as the year was right. Wouldn't you agree?

Again, HAPPY BDAY U.S.A.!!!!!!!

Actually, a much later date would be more accurate. We celebrate the date we declared independence, not the date the Declaration was actually ratified nor the date we actually gained independence. We're taught to ignore the fact that we could have still lost the war and then declaring our independence in the Revolution would have been useless as we would have remained colonies of Britian. We're also incorrectly taught that the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration on July 4, 1776, thus ratifing it on that date. Try August 2, 1776, that's the actual date of ratification. In order for a document to actually be ratified those ratifying it must sign their names to it to make the ratification official, most of the delegates did not sign until August 2nd with only Hancock signing July 4th.

But we had to win the war in order to truely gain our independence. That means a date of October 19, 1781 when Cronwallis surrendered to Washington, bringing the war to an end. Then you look to September 3, 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was ratified, officially ending the war and declaring the colonies a new, independent nation.

"In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America..." That's how it starts. History is not a story of what happened, it's a study of what got written down. And not burned, or what survived the editors and college professors. There are much (much!) worse acts of edited history in the public school textbooks that this. Anyhow, cut the calender some slack on the anniversary dates and be glad some men remember them at all. If our Independence was a woman we'd be buying it flowers in late September and apologizing almost every year.

Yes i do believe we celebrate the fourth of July the wrong way. This was the independents for the Europeans. But the African and the native Americans were not feed at all. We later receive ours. but you have a strong point.

Well you have some very interesting facts there. It doesn't matter anymore really. Just as long as we have a day to celebrate USA birthday it doesn't much matter which day. As long as it has some relevance which the 4th of July was very relevant (final draft of decleration).

We celebrate the birth of Jesus on Dec. 25th but we actually don't know which day he was born!

Thank you Skylark for all this information. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I don't think many people care whether it is the right day or not. The history is always interesting.

It's because it's when they signed the Declaration of Independence.

=]

I didnt even know all that b4 I read this question so I cant really give u an answer but holy crap, girl you are a genius. No wonder u graduated as the valvictorian of your school! Your gonna be president or something one day. And I'll be like "that's the girl I used to IM with," lol. : )

peace!

I never knew that! Quite interesting, I like that its the 4th then, and now it means even more to me!! Thanks for sharing that!

I can't imagine your teachers story being true, who would forget the day a new nation was born? lol.