Fun Facts, History and Trivia about Independence Day

· Independence Day was first celebrated in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776.

· The Liberty Bell sounded from the tower of Independence Hall that day summoning citizens to gather for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel John Nixon.

· When John Hancock had signed the Declaration of Independence with that well-known bold signature, he is supposed to have said, “King George ought to be able to read that!”

· The first public Fourth of July event at the White House occurred in 1804.

· The names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were withheld from the public for more than six months to protect those who signed. If independence had not been achieved, the treasonable act of the signers would have, by law, resulted in their deaths.

· It was not until 1941 that Congress declared the 4th of July as a federal legal holiday.

· In July 1776 the estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation was 2.5 million.

· There is a greater than 1 in 4 chance that the hot dogs or pork sausages consumed on the Fourth of July originated in Iowa. The odds are 1 in 3 that your side dish of baked beans originated from North Dakota.

The Declaration of Independence was approved in wording by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776.On July 4, the delegates voted to accept it. On the day between, July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail: I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.