Letters for George: July Four

Dear George,

I don’t remember being this glum on the Fourth of July before. This is, of course, the most patriotic holiday of the year, but there doesn’t seem to be much in current national life to celebrate. I’m not going to blame it all on the President. The forces that put him in office — racism, sexism, xenophobia, extreme inequality — have been disrupting American political life for decades. And we have, of course, lived through equally bad or worse times as a society — World War II, McCarthyism, the Vietnam War era, assassinations, 9/11, etc. In my more optimistic moments, I find myself imagining that politics have bottomed out, the Republican Party has pretty much destroyed itself, and that we’ll see a revolution of sorts beginning in 2018 and 2020. We’ll see. In the meantime, here are few quirky facts to help brighten up the Fourth of July:

Jefferson changed the word in the Declaration of Independence from “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property” to “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
200 copies of the Declaration of Independence were made, but the whereabouts of only 27 are known today. One was found in the back of a picture frame at a yard sale.
The names of the Declaration signers were kept secret for six months since they would have been executed if independence from Britain hadn’t been achieved.
Three U.S. presidents died on the Fourth of July (all in a row): John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe.
The song “Yankee Doodle” was written by British army officers to make fun of colonial, buckskin-wearing “Yankees”.
Miners in Swan, Colorado, blew up the post office in 1884 because they didn’t receive fireworks to celebrate the holiday.
Before the advent of cars, the Fourth of July was the worst day of the year for horses because of the noise and of children throwing firecrackers at them. (Now it’s worst for dogs.)
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Declaration of Independence was moved by train to Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was returned to DC in 1944.
July 4th is Americans’ top beer-drinking holiday, accounting for about $340 million in beer sales.
Joey Chestnut of San Jose, California, holds the world record for eating 73.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes at Nathan’s Coney Island Fourth of July contest.
There is a 42% decrease in air quality on July 4th because of fireworks.
Malia Obama was born on July 4, as were President Calvin Coolidge, Neil Simon, and Kiera O’Hara.
The modern 50-star U.S. flag was created as a class project by Lancaster Ohio high school student Robert G. Heft. When his teacher gave him a B-, Heft sent his flag to President Eisenhower who chose it for official adoption. (The teacher changed Robert’s grade to an A.)
The vast majority of imported U.S. flags are made in China.