The United States · Semiquincentennial

250

Two hundred fifty years of an unfinished experiment.

17762026
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In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the course of human events, one people declared themselves free.

It began as thirteen quarrelsome colonies and a single audacious sentence: that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. No nation had ever been founded on an idea rather than a bloodline or a border. The idea was imperfect from the start — and the two and a half centuries since have been the long, contested work of making it true.

1776

Fifty-six delegates pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Two and a Half Centuries

A Republic, in Milestones

1776
The Declaration of Independence
On July 4, the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Declaration. Thomas Jefferson drafted it in seventeen days; most of the fifty-six delegates actually signed the engrossed copy nearly a month later, on August 2.
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1783
The War Is Won
The Treaty of Paris ended eight years of revolution. Britain formally recognized the independence of the thirteen states and ceded territory stretching west to the Mississippi River.
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1787
A Constitution Is Written
Delegates meeting in Philadelphia produced a framework of just 4,543 words — still the oldest written national constitution in continuous use anywhere in the world.
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1803
The Louisiana Purchase
For roughly fifteen million dollars, the young republic bought 828,000 square miles from France, doubling its size overnight and opening the continent to the Pacific.
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1848
Seneca Falls
The first women’s rights convention issued the Declaration of Sentiments, boldly rewriting Jefferson’s words: "all men and women are created equal." It launched a movement that would take seventy-two years to win the vote.
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1863
A New Birth of Freedom
The Emancipation Proclamation redefined the Civil War. That November at Gettysburg, Lincoln reconsecrated the nation to the proposition on which it was founded in 272 unforgettable words.
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1869
The Rails Meet
A golden spike driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, joined the transcontinental railroad. A journey that once took months by wagon now took about a week.
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1886
Liberty Enlightening the World
A gift from France, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor. Her full name is often forgotten; her torch has welcomed newcomers ever since.
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1903
Twelve Seconds Over Kitty Hawk
On a windswept North Carolina beach, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew 120 feet in twelve seconds — the first powered, controlled flight, and the dawn of the aviation age.
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1920
The Nineteenth Amendment
After decades of struggle, women won the constitutional right to vote. Ratification came down to a single Tennessee legislator changing his mind at his mother’s urging.
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1963
"I Have a Dream"
Before 250,000 people at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. called the nation back to its founding promise on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
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1969
A Giant Leap
Apollo 11 set two Americans on the Moon while a fifth of humanity watched. The plaque they left reads: "We came in peace for all mankind."
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2026
Two Hundred Fifty Years
The Semiquincentennial. A quarter-millennium since a fragile experiment in self-government declared itself to the world — still unfinished, still striving.
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The Ledger of a Nation

A Country, By the Numbers

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Years of Independence
From 1776 to 2026 — a quarter of a millennium.
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Original Colonies
Thirteen stripes still mark them on the flag.
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States in the Union
Hawaii, the last, joined in 1959.
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Words in the Constitution
The shortest still in use of any major nation.
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Amendments Ratified
The 27th took 202 years to become law.
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Signers of the Declaration
From Franklin at 70 to Rutledge at 26.
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People Today
From roughly 2.5 million colonists in 1776.
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National Parks
From the Everglades to Denali — "America’s best idea."
Footnotes to the Founding

Curiosities of the Republic

Turn each card. The odd, the accidental, and the almost-forgotten details behind a familiar story.

01

Two founders died on the very same Fourth of July.

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Coincidence

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson — rivals, then friends — both died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration. Adams’ last words reportedly were "Jefferson survives." He did not; Jefferson had died hours earlier.

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02

The Liberty Bell has not rung in generations.

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Philadelphia

The famous crack silenced the bell for good in 1846. It is tapped, gently and symbolically, rather than rung — most notably each Fourth of July.

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03

The word "democracy" appears in neither founding document.

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Language

Search the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and you will not find it. The framers spoke instead of a "republic" and a government of "We the People."

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04

The national anthem borrows a British drinking song.

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Music

Francis Scott Key set his 1814 poem to the tune of "The Anacreontic Song," the theme of a London gentlemen’s club. It became the official anthem only in 1931.

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05

The Great Seal carries a four-word motto in Latin.

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Symbols

"E Pluribus Unum" — out of many, one. Chosen in 1782, it appears on coins and currency and clutched in the eagle’s beak on the seal itself.

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06

The bald eagle nearly lost the job to a turkey.

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Emblem

Benjamin Franklin privately grumbled that the eagle was "a bird of bad moral character." Congress made the bald eagle the national emblem in 1782 all the same.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
The Declaration of Independence, 1776

Happy 250th,
America.

Here’s to the next quarter-millennium.

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