As every year on the same date, Americans gather with family and friends in a day with barbecues, fireworks and the stars and stripes flag in all imaginable sizes and formats. But what is celebrated in the United States on the 4th of July?
We go back to July 4, 1776. On that day, after a year of skirmishes and combat against the British army, the 13 former colonies broke definitively with the mother country.
Representatives of those colonies signed the Declaration of Independence, a 1,323-word document -in English- that recognizes the United States as an independent nation.
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the political ties that have bound it to another and to take among the nations of the earth the separate and equal position of the laws of nature and the God of that Nature entitles him, a just respect for the judgment of humanity demands that he declare the causes that impel him to the separation”, begins the Declaration of Independence, written by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston .
Now, despite the historic declaration, the war continued. It was not until 1782 when the Parliament of England voted a proposal to definitively end the conflict because the “objective of reducing the inhabitants of that country to obedience was unfeasible”. He went ahead by a single vote, and on September 3, 1783, peace was signed in Paris.
Already on June 28, 1870, Congress decreed July 4 as a federal holiday, that is, a day of celebration at the national level to celebrate the most significant moment in the history of the United States.
From then on, a ritual of activities to display national pride began to take shape. Bonfires, fireworks, parades, concerts, speeches, baseball games, picnics, hot dogs and ceremonial acts, among others. Most important, however, is that Americans come together with family and friends to share the national sentiment that was born on July 4, 1776.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project