Here we are at the start of a long holiday weekend. Of course tomorrow is the big day — July 4th, “America’s Birthday.” The Naional Park Service will host the annual Independence Day fireworks celebration on the National Mall and President Joe Biden is set to host a group of essential workers and military families on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday.
The United States commemorates July 4th as its birthday — even though the Declaration of Independence didn’t become official until everyone had signed it in the first part of August.
Americans began celebrating July 4 the year after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Former President John Adams wrote that July 4, 1777, was celebrated in Philadelphia “with a festivity and ceremony becoming the occasion.”
But July 4 became more widely observed by Americans following the War of 1812. Independence Day became the most important nonreligious holiday for many Americans by the 1870s, and Congress passed a law making Independence Day a federal holiday on June 28, 1870.
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