Commonly referred to as "America's Birthday" and "Independence Day", as well as "the day America won its Independence".

July 4th is NOT the day that America won its indepence!
It is the day that America declared its independence.
It's different!

This holiday usets me because the way people talk about it and teach it to you when you're young is that it's the day America won its Independence.
But it's not!
It's the day the colonies officially declared that they wanted to be seperate from Great Britain. At that point, if they had lost the war, they still would have been colonies. They were not yet actually independent!

Because of the way people go on about Independence Day being "America's Birthday" and all, I did not learn this until tenth grade when I took the first year of my AP U.S. History class.

Then, when I realized that what I had thought for all those years (that July 4th was when we got our independence) was incorrect, my dad told me off for not paying attention in school! Luckily, my mom defended me and said that that was what she had always thought too.

So this year at camp (I'm a counselor), when they did their special little Fourth of July celebration thing, I got really pissed off at the holiday once again.

Durring the celebration thing, there were three groups that stood up and did something. Two of them sang parodies of patriotic songs with new words saying that their group was the best.

The third group did a little seven-person skit thing. They had two rows of three people facing eachother. One row was Americans, and the other was Brits. They shouted at each other a little bit and then the Brits stormed off in a huff and said, "We'll be back!" Then the seventh person said, "They fought for four years, and on July fourth, 1776, the Americans won their independence."

This was a group of kids that are going into Nineth Grade! AND, becasue the campers in the group are so old, they also have old (relatively - twenty-six to forty) counselors. Not only did the fourteen year-old campers not know what actually happened on July 4th, neither did their adult counselors!!!

I BLAME THE MEDIA!



If you, like them, thought Fourth of July celebrated America gaining its independence, then please read on and Educate Yourself:<

The resolution on independence was passed on July 2, 1776. ^{(Thank you Meaghan!)}
The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.
America did not win its independence until September 3, 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.



Thank you all for listening to my angry ranting. I hope you learned something.