Re: Independence Day

Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:

There were a few references to "the nation's birthday" even though
the actual start of the nation was on March 4, 1789.  Up until then,
we had been free and independent states.

It was called the United States from 1776.

ObSF:  L. Neil Smith's novels set in an alternate United States in
which the current constitution was never adopted and its authors
had been hanged as traitors.  Their charter had been to update the
Articles of Confederation, not to overthrow them.

Guy Fawkes Day is a similar bonfires-and-fireworks holiday, and
I wondered whether it had undergone a similar shift -- until I
realized that even a yank can recite "I see no reason/why gunpowder
treason/should ever be forgot".

An attempted assassination of a king seems an odd thing to celebrate.

I'll be in Buffalo for the NASFiC.  I wonder if there's any memorial
or museum to the presidential assassination that happened there.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.