The history of today’s holiday makes it stand out from others

The United States has holidays devoted to our war dead, to working men and women, our veterans and presidents and a civil rights leader, but no holiday has a longer history than today’s. And history is the key to understanding and appreciating the significance of the Fourth of July.

Just 235 years ago today, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution declaring the independence of America’s 13 colonies from Great Britain.

It was an act that einsured there would be no easy exit from what we now refer to as the Revolutionary War or War for Independence.

In about 1,300 words, the Declaration of Independence provided not only a list of grievances that justified the demand for independence, but gave an outline for a revolutionary type of government that recognized that all men were created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights.

That not all signers absolutely believed that — it’s impossible to reconcile that ideal with the ownership of slaves — is troublesome, but not a fatal flaw. The declaration established an ideal that we as a nation have strived to realize. We continue to do so even today.

And even as we can be troubled by our failure to fully live the vision of equality contained in the Declaration of Independence, we should be alarmed at what we know about the failure of our young people to appreciate not just the declaration but countless aspects of our rich national history.

Test results

Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation’s Report Card, showed a solid grasp of American history. The test quizzed students on topics including colonization, the American Revolution and the Civil War, and the contemporary United States.

While far too many students are deficient in other academic subjects as well, history scores were the lowest among seven subjects on the national test. It is as if the effort placed on increasing science and technology scores came at the expense of understanding history.

One of the best places to start in improving the appreciation of history is with the Declaration of Independence, and there is no better day to start than today.

There are any number of Fourth of July quizzes to be found these days. A very good one appears at www.earlyamerica.com. Some of the early questions, such as “Who was the principal author of the Declaration? Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson,” lull the reader into a false sense of security. Those who responded, “Duh, Jefferson,” can mull over the answer to this question: “In writing the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was influenced by: The Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the Dutch Act Of Redolence, the Virginia Call To Arms or Emerich de Vattel’s ‘The Law of Nations.’”

If you don’t know the answer off the top of your head, you’ll have to do a little research, or go to the earlyamerica website, take the test and access the answer to that question along with 10 others of varying degrees of difficulty.

An enriched experience

Even 10 or 20 minutes spent online at that website or any other devoted to American history or — for the old fashioned — opening a history book might seem out of character with the traditional use of time on a holiday.

But thinking about the Declaration of Independence for a few minutes, reading its words and contemplating what it meant for the signers to place their names on that document would be time well spent.

It will make the same amount of time spent this evening watching fireworks that much more meaningful. This is not only the birthday of America, it is a day that marks the beginning of what would become a whole new world.