Facts and Trivia about this day:

• The first Independence Day was celebrated on July 8, 1776 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• The Fourth of July and Independence Day, July 4th has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1941.
• John Adams believed that July 2nd was the correct date on which to celebrate the birth of American independence, and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest. Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826–the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
• Another Founding Father who became President, James Monroe, died on July 4, 1831 becoming the third President in a row to die on Independence Day.
• Calvin Coolidge, the country’s 30th president, was born on Independence Day.
• During the summer of 1776 some colonists celebrated the birth of independence by holding mock funerals for King George III, as a way of symbolizing the end of the monarchy’s hold on America and the triumph of liberty.
• Fireworks sales by wholesalers totaled $508.1 million in 2012
• The Fourth of July is the most popular holiday for grilling out (68 percent), followed by Memorial Day (52 percent) and Labor Day (51 percent).
• July 4 marks a day of liberation in both the Philippines and Rwanda. In the Southeast Asian nation, July 4, known as “Republic Day,” marks the date when the United States officially recognized the Philippines as an independent state in 1946. (However, though the day is still significant to Filipino history, June 12 has been the country’s official Independence Day since 1962.
• July Fourth is the “biggest hot dog holiday of the year,” according to TIME magazine, with Americans reportedly consuming about 155 million of them on Independence Day alone.
• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the so-called “State of Independence,” where the Declaration of Independence was debated and signed, is home to 11 places with the word “liberty” in their name and 33 with the word “union” in them, leading the country for the number of places with such names.
• In a letter to his daughter Sarah Bache in 1784, Benjamin Franklin wrote that he was displeased that the bald eagle had been chosen as the symbol for the nation. “He is a Bird of bad moral character. He does not get his Living honestly,” he wrote. “You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour [sic] of the Fishing
• Due to concerns about cracking the iconic instrument, the Liberty Bell has not been rung since 1846. Instead, every year, to mark the Fourth of July, the 2,000-pound bell is tapped 13 times to signal for bells across the country to start ringing.
• In July 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation is 2.5 million.
• Did you know that Thomas Jefferson changed the wording of the Declaration of Independence from ‘the pursuit of property‘ to ‘the pursuit of happiness‘?
• Over 1 in 3 – The odds that your side dish of baked beans originated from North Dakota, which produced 36 percent of the nation’s dry, edible beans in 2010. Another popular Fourth of July side dish is corn on the cob. Florida, California, Georgia, Washington and New York together accounted for 68 percent of the fresh market sweet corn produced nationally in 2010. Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service

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