What Would Jimmy Do?

A couple of days ago the subject here was umbrellas. After I’d hit the “send” button, I got to thinking that for the sake of completeness, I should have mentioned the parasol — a term that i remember hearing more in the past than I have recently. So — let’s talk about parasols….

Webster defines parasol as: a lightweight umbrella used as a sunshade.
I guess from that definition, a parasol is simply an umbrella that is to be used when the sun is shining and it’s not raining. That seems reasonable — I’m not sure which came first, the parasol or the umbrella… whichever it was, was it invented for a shelter from the elements, or from the sun? Parasols and umbrellas are essentially built the same — they have basically the same design except one is designed to block out the sun and the other rainy weather.

As far as I can tell, the parasol dates back to the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs and other kings or royalty — when they walked, they had a servant carry parasols to give them shade on hot days. Parasols were often intricately designed to be attractive and/or to convey power and prestige.

The first umbrellas, on the other hand, weren’t decorated in any way and were fairly bulky — not particularly attractive and not particularly easy to use. Most of the time, people would not even bother to venture out in the rain, let alone struggle with an umbrella. 

Parasols were more popular than umbrellas up until around the middle to late 1800s. As time passed, the umbrella kept being refined little by little and offered shelter to those who needed to go out in the rain, snow, or other severe weather.

Over the years, people seemed to not worry about the sun as much as they did about heavy rain or other “wet” weather conditions. In places like England, where you often have more rain than sun, the umbrella slowly began to become an every day accessory. Of course as its use increased, its cost decreased.

As a way of summary, the word “parasol” (originally from French) is a combination of para, meaning to stop or to shield, and sol, meaning the sun.
Basically, parasols are for sun protection, umbrellas for rain protection.
As a general rule of thumb, if it’s made of waterproof material, it’s an umbrella; if it’s made of anything else, cotton, lace, silk, etc., it’s a parasol

Originally, parasol handles were (and are) usually straight; umbrella handles were curved, so the umbrella could be hung up to dry. With advancements in technology and the popularity of folding umbrellas, curved handles aren’t as popular today — although they are often used on the larger “golf sized” umbrellas. 

So there you are — some things to ponder when it’s rainy — or sunny. You know what they say, the mind is like a a parasol or umbrella, it’s most useful when open.
— 30 —

The past few days, every afternoon the weather has “clouded up” and while we didn’t get much rain, we did have a few showers. It reminds me of when I first came to Washington — during the summer, it seemed like every day at just about five o’clock, it would rain, usually not heavy but enough to get you wet. These were referred to as “executive showers.”

All the government and office workers would come out of their buildings and up would go the umbrellas. I thought it was interesting that it seemed to rain just about every afternoon at the same time, but the sight of all those umbrellas was maybe more interesting.

Growing up in Oklahoma, I almost never saw an umbrella. I remember that one of my grandmothers had an umbrella, but she only used it to keep out of the sun when she was out for a walk.

The umbrella is an interesting device — the word itself comes from the Latin “umbra” meaning shade or shadow. Like a lot of things, nobody knows who invented the first umbrella — or when. A lot of people think the basic umbrella was probably invented by the Chinese more than 4,000 years ago. But there is evidence of umbrellas being use, in ancient art and artifacts, about the same time in Egypt and Greece. The first umbrellas were designed to provide shade from the sun. The Chinese first waterproofed their umbrellas using oiled, or waxed, paper and used mulberry bark or bamboo for the frames.

We must have at least ten or twelve umbrellas around the house and in our cars. Claire uses an umbrella a lot more than I do — if the rain is light or just a “shower,” i almost never use an umbrella, and I never use one to protect me from the sun.

Well, that got me to thinking…. I wonder if our “use” of umbrellas is in line with most people? After some extensive research on my part, I discovered some interesting things about the umbrella.
Worldwide, the average number of umbrellas people own is 2.4. Japan leads the world, averaging 3.3 umbrellas per person. If the data is analyzed carefully, you’ll find that people own more umbrellas in areas that average more rain.
Most of our umbrellas are black, or dark blue in color, although Claire has a couple with “patterns,” and we have at least one one golf-size umbrella that has a picture of Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians. But the people of the world usually choose dark blue for the color of their umbrellas, although black is a close second in popularity. Men preferred black umbrellas, and women favored colors like red and green.
As i said, I rarely use an umbrella unless it’s raining pretty heavy — most people take out their umbrellas when a light rain starts. Interestingly enough, it appears that a higher percentage of men start using an umbrella with a drizzle than women.
Almost all of our umbrellas, except for the larger ones are folding umbrellas. That seems to be by far the most popular style, worldwide. However, in both Russia and Japan, a high percentage of people use plastic “disposable” umbrellas, something that people in most other countries shy away from.
I have no idea how much any of our umbrellas cost — many were gifts, or ‘promotions’ advertising something and some we’ve had for so long I don’t know where they came from. But you might find it interesting to know that the average cost of an umbrella on the planet Earth is $11.50, and the average number of umbrellas a person buys each year is 1.14 umbrellas. 
Over the years, we’ve probably “lost” untold number of umbrellas —it’s easy to do, often they’re left outside and if it stops raining while you’re inside, it’s easy to forget about your umbrella. Just check the lost and found section of your church, if you don’t believe me. People of the world lose an average of 4.6 umbrellas in their life. Men lose 2.3 more umbrellas than women.
The people who mind most getting wet in the rain are the English — people that mind the least are Americans. Also, people who most dislike getting wet are in their 40s. People mind less, the younger they are. 
I usually check the weather on my phone every few days — the people of the world average checking the weather forecast 2.3 time a day. People in Korea check the weather, on average, 3.5 time a day. The Japanese are close behind — they check the weather 3.4 times a day. 

So I guess that’s my tribute to the umbrella… something most of us have around, but doesn’t get the credit it deserves. I know a bunch of good jokes about umbrellas — but they usually go over people’s heads. I do remember a song from when I was younger, about letting a smile be your umbrella — I think it went something like, let a smile be your umbrella, and you’ll get a face full of rain….
— 30 —

Honestly, I’m not usually one to brag, but I’m thinking that, in this case, maybe I should. If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you know that the President for the past few days has bragged that he “recently” took a mental competence test and it was “very hard,” especially the last five questions. Now the President not only took the (very hard) test — get this — he “aced” it!!
While no one knows for sure, it appears that the test he is referring to is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test. 

Ok — are you ready for this? — I took that exact same test. Why? Because when you get to be my age and apply for life insurance, the insurance companies not only require you to have a physical exam, they also want to be sure you’re not looney. (Maybe one reason they do this is because they can’t imagine why anyone as old as I am would want to buy a life insurance policy — unless they’re crazy.)

The MoCA screening test was designed about 20 years ago as a possible replacement for another test — the Mini-Mental State Examination, that had been widely used since the 1970s to look for outright dementia. The MoCA test is used in all 31 of the National Institute on Aging’s Alzheimer Disease Centers. The MoCA test is available on the Internet — just search for it. It’s the complete test, just like the one that I and Donald took.

The MoCA test gained acceptance because it is a bit harder that the Mini-Mental and can pick up problems that occur in the earliest stage of dementia, called mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — a sort of “everyday forgetfulness.” About 1 in 5 people over age 65 have MCI and roughly one-third of those will develop Alzheimer’s disease within five years. 

One of the things I remember from when I took the MoCA was an exercise to draw a clock with the hands pointing to 11:10. I, like the President, was complimented on being able to accomplish such a feat. My “tester” indicated that many people couldn’t do this — correctly — usually the major mistake was mixing up the hour and minute hands.

Many doctors today use cognitive screenings of some type — usually a sub-set of the MoCA questions. I have never had such a test in our doctor’s office, probably because I don’t use Medicare. Congress instituted a requirement that Medicare cover a brief cognitive screening test as part of the annual wellness exam. 

Some people simply don’t want to know if they are developing dementia, but those that do are often given a neuropsychological test much more difficult and intense than the MoCA. And doctors will repeat the test over time. These tests aren’t like PSA tests, or colonoscopies that identify issues right away and allow for a diagnosis and treatment to begin.

So — I may not be a genius, but I must be very smart, since I don’t think I missed any of the questions on my mental competence test. If you find yourself in a situation that you may be required to take the MoCA, feel free to give me a call if you need some coaching. Of course you could call the President, but with his busy schedule, it might take him a while to get back to you…. I’m just hanging around the house because of COVID-19.
— 30 —

I know we have enough controversies these days and it wasn’t my intention yesterday to start another one when I suggested that Pi Day should be on July 22 instead of March 14. Well, it seems that there is another movement afoot that Pi Day shouldn’t be either of these days, and maybe not even be celebrated at all. I’m going to stop short of calling this a conspiracy, but it’s something we should probably keep an eye on.

The traditional Pi Day looks like 3.14 for those that write dates in the month, then day format. It should be noted that this format is rarely used outside of the Americas. Pi Approximation Day, the 22nd of July, is written more in line with the European format, as 22/7.

Well, get ready for it — there are “others” that would prefer that Pi Day not be celebrated at all. They say that number, with all its decimal places, should not be given the status of having its own day. “They” say that we should replace Pi with Tau — a number that serves much the same purpose and should be celebrated on June 28, written 6/28.

At least some of this argument is based on the date format. Pi Day was born in the US where the month, then day format is used. Worldwide, by far the most popular date format is day/month/year — it is used in the UK, much, if not most, of Asia, Australia, Africa and South America. Pi Day (March 14) doesn’t work with that format, but the format does work for Pi Approximation Day. 

(In China and many other countries in south-east Asia, dates are written year, month, day. It’s possible to write Pi Day in that format since the day (14) does follow the month (3) — but, the year still comes first and so it doesn’t work quite as well.) 

So what’s the deal with this movement to replace Pi Day with Tau Day? Advocates of the Tau movement insist that Tau is the true circle constant. The (Tau) number itself is simply Pi, but doubled — to 6.28318…. the Tau community insists that makes it easier to use in many applications. The movement has created a website that explains, in detail, why the world is wrong. Try ing to convince the world that Pi is confusing and an unnatural choice for the circle constant won’t be easy — giving the Greek letter Tau its own day, much less replacing Pi Day will be a difficult challenge. The “Tau people” admit they are facing a powerful, centuries old, conspiracy that propagates pro-Pi propaganda. 

So if you’re like me, into special days — you may want to consider starting a movement in your own neighborhood to recognize June 28 as Tau Day. It may take a while, but maybe the world will come around. Until the movement really gets going, you might think about celebrating “Tau Time” (6.28 pm) on Pi Day. That time, 6.28 pm, on Pi Day, is when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sends out its admissions decisions over the Internet.
So this is no ∏ in the sky theory — it’s legit. And just think, if Tau Day does replace Pi Day, we get to have twice as much ∏.
— 30 —

Both faithful readers know that every year I celebrate March 14. That, of course is Pi ((∏) Day. The day gets its name from 3.14, the first three digits of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

But other than the fact that March 14 also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday, today, July 22, is just as important — maybe even a little more so.

Today is known (by all of us in the know) as Pi Approximation Day. The fraction 22/7 (22nd of July) has a value of 3.142857, so it has the same first three digits as Pi.

Actually both 3.14 and 22/7 are approximations of Pi, so both days should get at least equal credit and just be called “Pi Day.” In reality, 22/7 is closer to Pi than 3.14, so maybe July 22 should be the real Pi Day and March 14 be Pi Approximation Day.

I know I’ve talked about this before, but pi is important, so we should probably review…. Pi is irrational. That means the decimal expansion never ends and never repeats, so any number of decimal places we write out is an approximation. Mathematicians and purists say the exact number can written using just one symbol — ∏.

Naturally, the more decimal places we use makes any computation involving pi more precise. But how precise do we need to be? If pi is rounded to just the integer 3, the accuracy of the computation will be off by about 4.51%. So if we use the value of pi as 3 and compute the circumference of an object with a diameter of 100 feet, we will be off by 4 ½ feet. By using 3.14 as the value of pi, the accuracy will only be off by about ½ percent. If we use 3.14159 the accuracy is within 0.000084 percent. 

Some people have memorized pi to thousands of decimal places — I’m not sure what the value of this exercise is except a personal challenge, but then again they may be in a quest for eternal truth or something like that. 

So Pi Approximation Day will be a little subdued this year, but I hope you celebrate with as big a Pi Approximation Day party as circumstances allow.
— 30 —

We talked with our grandson, Locke a day or so ago and he had big news. A loose tooth. I’m sure he is a little apprehensive, but he’s also excited — this will be his first encounter with the Tooth Fairy.

I asked Dave what the going rate for “tooths” is these days. He said he wasn’t sure and was a little concerned that he might have to take out a loan to meet the upcoming financial obligations. 

I remember the tooth fairy leaving me money when I was little, so the tooth fairy custom has been around a long time. Of course, the idea is that when children lose one of their baby teeth, they place the tooth under their pillow and while they are asleep, the tooth fairy will come and exchange the tooth for money.

No one really knows the answer as to why the tooth fairy wants your teeth in the first place and is willing to pay cash for them. One theory is that the tooth fairy gives the teeth to babies that don’t have any teeth. I’ve also heard that the teeth are crushed to make fairy dust.

I’ve seen pictures of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny that I’d recognize right away. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture that I’d immediately identify as the Tooth Fairy. I guess if I was trying to imagine the tooth fairy, it would be a “she” and she’d look something like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.

And while we’re on the subject — is the tooth fairy a boy or a girl? You now know what I think — girl. But I figured this question was worth some extensive research. A survey conducted in 1984 revealed that 74 percent of those surveyed believed the tooth fairy to be female, while 12 percent believed the tooth fairy could be neither male nor female and 8 percent believed the tooth fairy could be either male or female. I might add that some people claim to have seen the tooth fairy, but there is no independent confirmation of whether these sightings were real or whether they looked like Tinkerbell or  took some other form.

But back to the original reason I started on this subject today. The tooth fairy doesn’t seem to consistently leave an exact amount of money per tooth. It also appears that the tooth fairy is more generous in some areas of the country. But based on a national survey of 1,000 people, the average price paid for a tooth in 2020 is $4.03. As a point of reference, the average for a tooth in 1998 was $1.30. If the trend keeps up, by the time Rory and Ellie start losing their teeth, Dave may indeed need to schedule that trip to the credit union. 

A lot of what I’ve written is speculation, so I should probably conclude with something more concrete — a quote from the Tooth Fairy. When the Tooth Fairy was asked to weight in on the cost of collecting teeth, he/she reportedly said, “Kids need to be brushing and taking care of their teeth. I tend to pay more for healthy teeth so let’s keep brushing those teeth for two minutes two times a day, and don’t forget to floss!”
Good advice from the expert on the subject — the Tooth Fairy.
— 30 —

I read somewhere that the first 12 minutes in a church dramatically influences whether you’re coming back or not. This is before you’ve heard the music or the pastor speak or even decided where’s the “best place” to sit during the service. When we moved to Shepherdstown, we checked out a few churches, trying to decide which one might be best for us. St. Agnes was an old, very small building and it offered essentially no parking. 

When we entered the church, it didn’t take anywhere close to 12 minutes — we knew almost immediately this was the place for us. As soon as we met Fr. Mat, the decision was easy. 

Over the years, I’ve attended all kinds of churches in many, many places around the world. I’ve been exposed to, and in some cases, gotten to know many members of the “clergy.” (I used the term clergy, but I think that technically refers to “christian” religious personnel — some of those religious orders weren’t “christian.”) But over the years, I’ve come to know many, or at least some, of this group fairly well. It would be easy to rank my top five — after that, it would become a little more difficult. But Fr. Mat would be at the top of my list every time.

This past Sunday, Fr. Mat celebrated his last “official” Mass at St. Agnes in Shepherdstown. He now embarks on, hopefully, many years of a much deserved retirement. A few years ago St. Agnes had a stewardship initiative entitled GIFT. Even now, I’m not sure how I viewed that initiative or felt about it at the time. The bottom line of the undertaking was to improve out relationship with God by the act of giving — I certainly never had any issues with the concept — giving is one of the central themes of the Bible — gifts, giving, etc. are mentioned hundreds, if not thousands, of times and the giving and receiving of gifts brings joy to most people. I’ve heard it said that God’s greatest gift to us was Himself. But I think His greatest gift to St. Agnes was Fr. Mat. 

So on this auspicious occasion, congratulations and thanks to Fr. Mat — and along with those wishes we should probably include an apology. We often only think of him as the true Shepherd that he is, and we forget that he has his own problems — probably because he is so good at putting his own situations aside and making us feel as though we matter to him more than anything else. He never tells us to call him later when he’s busy, when we suffer the loss of a loved one, when we have trouble in our lives or homes, when we are sick — he’s always there. Very few parishes are so fortunate to have the gift of God we’ve had in Fr. Mat. Happy retirement!!
— 30 —

As you know, just about all the news you hear, watch or read is all about politics — even subjects that shouldn’t be, and have never been in the past, are now political. Even when I was young, I was alway kind of fascinated by politics. I remember really enjoying the political conventions — when they weren’t just the formality of nominating a candidate for the presidency. I always considered them entertaining , as well as educational. It never occurred to me that that wouldn’t be the way we always determined our candidates. 

I saw a map of the United states the other night and some of the states were colored blue and some were colored red. The news person was explaining what one party needed to do turn a red state blue (or a blue state red.) When I was a kid, the Republican party was represented by an elephant and the Democratic party was represented by a donkey. I don’t remember any “color” being associated with either party. 

Well, of course that got me to wondering, and my extensive research mode kicked in. 
The first published reference I found to red states or blue states was in the Boston Globe on October 15, 1992 in a column written by David Nyhan. He referred to red states as Democratic and blue states as Republican. That is exactly opposite of what we see today. Further research uncovered that in 1976, NBC identified states won by Gerald Ford in blue and Jimmy Carter’s states in red. And on election night in 1980, ABC News showed Ronald Reagan votes as a series of blue lights on a map — Carter’s votes were shown in red. It turns out that Time magazine assigned red to the Democrats and blue to the Republicans in its election graphics in every election from 1988 to 2000. The Washington Post’s election graphics for the 2000 election were Republican-blue and Democrat-red.

So it looks like prior to 2000 it was more common to associate red with Democrats and blue with Republicans.
In the 2000 election, NBC, CBS, CNN and USA Today all coded their maps blue for Gore and red for Bush. Why was there a color switch from 1996, when Clinton states were colored red? One explanation I found indicated that since the advent of color TV, there was a formula put in place to avoid charges of giving any party an advantage by painting it a “better” color. The formulas is: the color of the incumbent party alternates every 4 years. If you’re really interested, you might want to check this out, but looking back, it seems to make some amount of sense to me.

There appears to have been a lot of confusion over colors for a number of years, but by 1992, news networks seemed  to have mostly settled on red-for-Republican, blue-for Democrat. One interesting fact that my extensive research uncovered was that NBC was not the first to broadcast election night in color (many articles I found indicated that that was the case.) The NBC broadcast was in 1976. Actually, it was CBS in 1972 that broadcast the first color election night coverage. I couldn’t find a lot of details, but it appears that Nixon, who won, wore “blue” that night.

Before almost all television stations began broadcasting in color, map colors didn’t matter, since the picture was black-and-white. It may be hard for the “youngsters” to believe, but there was no television at all for the first 40-plus presidential races — people got their news from newspapers, or via the radio.

During the Cold War, red was associated with communism and the Soviet Union — so there was some reluctance to associate that color with either political party. 

But back to the color decisions made by the networks every four years — most Americans probably weren’t paying very close attention and likely didn’t associate the colors with the parties as we do now. 

What really changed things was the election of 2000. Al Gore won Florida, and then he didn’t, and then George Bush won Florida, and then he didn’t, and for a while we had no idea who the next president would be. The debate over who was finally going to become president went on for a long time and the commentators kept referring to blue states and red states — even comedians got in on the act suggesting that Gore could be president for the blue states and Bush president for the red states. Because this debate/discussion lasted for so long, red designating Republican and blue designating Democrat seems to have sort of “stuck.”

There’s no reason for the choice of red and blue, of course — two other colors could just as easily be used. But blue and red offer good contrast and are good for the television display. 

With politics constantly in the news and the fact that it has become so polarized, being able to refer to clusters of votes, or states, it probably makes sense to use a “color” as a kind of shorthand. I suppose that for completeness, I should mention purple. Sometimes states aren’t red or blue — they’re purple. A purple state is a “swing” state — where both Democratic and Republican candidates have strong support, but there is no overwhelming majority for either party. 

So I guess that’s about enough about red states and blue states — of course it would be nice if we could just talk about the united states… sigh.
— 30 —

Summertime
And the living’ is easy,
Fish are jumping’, and the cotton is high
~ Ira Gershwin

A few days ago when discussing schools, I mentioned that a one-room school near Maysville always started school during the summer and then was dismissed for two or three weeks in the fall so the students could help on the farms — usually picking cotton. 

If you’ve read this blog over the years, you’ll remember that I’ve mentioned that Lindsay, Oklahoma, just a few miles from Maysville (and Story) billed itself as the broom-corn capital of the world. Broom-corn was, in fact, a very big crop in the area when I was growing up, but the other very big crop was cotton. A lot, if not most, farmers in the area around Maysville planted cotton. 

Actually, cotton has been a major agricultural commodity in Oklahoma since the five tribes arrived in what was then “Indian Territory, the Choctaws being the first to plant cotton. Cotton was very profitable until the Civil War came along bringing devastation to farms, large and small, along with general impoverishment and halted any significant cotton production.

After the Civil War, cotton production picked up — while tribal law forbade American Indian citizens to lease their lands to outsiders, many got around the law by “employing” noncitizens for tenants who eventually cultivated 80 percent of the cotton farms in Indian Territory. Indian Territory was “opened” in the late 1800s/early 1900s and called Oklahoma Territory — that led to an influx of even more cotton farmers. 

Cotton farmers began each season by tilling the soil and planting the crop in late April or early May. Once the plants sprouted, workers with hoes thinned the rows once to prevent overcrowding and again later to control weeds. You heard the term “hoeing cotton” a lot around Maysville when I was growing up. At harvest time, normally beginning in late September, family members and other workers put the hand picked cotton in cloth bags (or “sacks” as they were called in Oklahoma.) The sacks were weighed when full — workers got paid by “the pound.” The crop was dumped into a wagon and delivered to nearby gins. 

When I lived in Maysville, one of the major “industries” was the cotton gin. Most everyone knows that the cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney — the term “gin” was derived from “engine.” Cotton is easily grown, and since it isn’t a “food” crop, its fibers can be stored for long periods of time. The problem is that cotton plants contain seeds that are difficult to separate from the soft fibers. Before the cotton gin was invented, the cotton had to be cleaned by hand. The average cotton picker could remove the seeds from only about a pound of cotton per day. The cotton gin can quickly and easily separate the cotton fibers from their seeds, increasing productivity dramatically. The fibers are are then processed into various cotton goods, usually textiles like clothing. The separated seed can be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil. The cotton gin in Maysville turned out the cotton fibers in 500 pound bales and I think the seed was loaded into trucks. The bales from Maysville were sent to compressing plants in either Ardmore or Oklahoma City. I remember that at certain times of the year there was a lot of “dust” hanging over Maysville because of the cotton gin. 

When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, all but three Oklahoma counties raised cotton. At the time there were approximately three hundred cotton gins in the state — I don’t know how many there are today, but it’s nowhere near three hundred. Today, there isn’t all that much cotton grown around Maysville and none of it is “hand-picked.” Cotton picking is now done by machinery.

Anyone that’s picked cotton or is familiar with the process knows the difference between “pulling bolls” and “picking cotton.” For those that have never been in a cotton field… cotton picking means you reach around the cotton ball and pull the fiber from the cotton burr — pulling bolls means you cup your fingers around the cotton burr and pull the whole thing, burr and cotton ball, off together. Again, this operation has been automated. No one pocks cotton — or pulls bolls anymore. If school returns to normal, I wonder if Story will still get some time off in September/October….
— 30 —

Today is July 4th — every year we celebrate American Independence Day on the Fourth of July. July 4, 1776 represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of American as an independent nation. 

It’s a nice day for a party, but July 4, 1776 is not the day that the Continental Congress decided to declare independence — they did that on July 2, 1776.
July 4, 1776 isn’t the day we started the American Revolution — that happened back in April of 1775. 
July 4, 1776 isn’t the day Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence — that was in June of 1776.
July 4th, 1776 isn’t the day the Declaration of Independence was delivered to Great Britain — that didn’t happen until November of 1776.
July 4th isn’t the day the Declaration of Independence was signed — that was August 2, 1776. 

So what happened on July 4th, 1776 that makes it worthy of such a grand celebration?
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. They’d been working on it for a couple of days after the draft was submitted on July 2nd and finally, on July 4th, agreed on all the edits and changes. July 4, 1776 became the date that was included on the Declaration of Independence — the fancy handwritten copy, signed in August, is the one displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Printed copies of the Declaration (with the date July 4, 1776) were circulated throughout the new nation. So it turns out that when people thought of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 was the date they remembered. 

This may not come as a surprise, but it took Congress almost a hundred years, after the Declaration of Independence was written, to declare July 4 to be a national holiday. I guess based on the Washington of today, that would be considered pretty expedient action. But a national holiday it is — happy Independence Day to everyone.
— 30 —