When we Americans are young children, we are taught the basics of our nation's founding. But often those stories get shortened into easy-to-recall sound bites that don't tell the whole story. Most of the historical "facts" you remember are oversimplifications of a more nuanced story. For example, I bet you thought the Declaration of Independence was adopted in the fourth day of July in 1776.
Learn other historic tales that were different from what you recall in this article at National Geographic News. Link
Independence Day is celebrated two days too late. The Second Continental Congress voted for a Declaration of Independence on July 2, prompting John Adams to write his wife, "I am apt to believe that [July 2, 1776], will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival."
Adams correctly foresaw shows, games, sports, buns, bells, and bonfires—but he got the date wrong. The written document wasn't edited and approved until the Fourth of July, and that was the date printers affixed to "broadside" announcements sent out across the land. July 2 was soon forgotten.
Learn other historic tales that were different from what you recall in this article at National Geographic News. Link
He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of [other] men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight (Luke 16:15).
This is the ignominy of nationalism. My family were Swiss Mennonites, my great ancestor Casper Schürch (1657 - 1739) inmigritated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a loyalist to Britain, and so were his 2 sons. During the American Revolution his sons fled to Canada to avoid being beaten or killed by revolutionary Statesmen. They settled near Markham and eventually there were enough Schürchs in the region to found a new city based on the surname; Sherkston, Ontario, Canada.
So, what does that make me? Swiss, American or Canadian? Should I be loyal to the British and am I a Mennonite or not? It is evidently clear to me that it is all bollocks. The only thing that makes me a Canadian is the fact that I live within the arbitrarily defined political boundary that gives definition to "Canada".
I don't, because in my opinion, Familialism (slavish devotion to a surname) is as bad as Nationalism. The name itself proves to be entirely arbitrary, the website lists 77 different derivative spellings of "Schürch". I'm sure if I dug deep enough, I'd come to find that I am related to everyone in the world.
Whatever.
We get it.
Move on.