It’s Almost Here!

You can begin to smell the barbecues being set up, hear the sound of ice being poured across bottles of beer to chill and you can almost see the bright bursts of light illuminating the night sky with multitudes of color.

That’s right, the Fourth of July is coming up fast, that day when we celebrate our nation’s independence and glory by being around friends and family and enjoying the freedom generations of Americans have striven to achieve and maintain.

Here are some interesting facts you may not know about “The Fourth”:

The first Independence Day was held on July, 8th, 1776, in  Philadelphia. This included the Liberty Bell sounding to call the public to Independence Hall for the first reading in public of the Declaration of Independence, read by Colonel John Nixon.

Two of our most important historical figures, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died on Independence Day in 1826.

Out of the fifty-six signatures on the Declaration of Independence, only six were put to the document on or before July, 4th, 1776. The other fifty “John Hancocks” were placed there during an event on August, 2nd of the same year.

The National Anthem is actually the tune for an old English drinking song called To Anacreon in Heaven, just with different lyrics.

The Fourth of July was not actually a national holiday until 1941.

Modernly, your pooch may hide under the bed when the fireworks start, but back in the days before cars the Fourth was the dreaded holiday of horses everywhere due to all the noise and the children who would throw firecrackers at them.

Around 150 million hot dogs will be cooked and consumed on the fourth, enough dogs to stretch from Los Angeles, California to Washington D.C. Five times.

If you are eating anything containing beef this holiday, there is a good chance that the meat came from right here in Texas as the Lone Star State produces one sixth of the nation’s beef output. If your meat was not from Texas, then it most likely originated in either Nebraska or Kansas.

Yankee Doodle was originally sung by the British to poke fun of the American colonists.

According to data from 2009, Americans spend six hundred million on fireworks each year. Other items totaled were ninety four million on lighter fluid, two hundred and three million on condiments, three hundred and forty one million on beer, one hundred and ninety three million on hamburgers and one hundred ninety three million on potato chips and soda combined.

Here’s hoping that everyone has a safe and healthy Fourth of July holiday!