Independence Day?

So yesterday was Independence Day. Being a history major, I have spent a large portion of my adult life studying U.S. History. Since there is only about 250 years of "official" U.S. history, I have focused a lot of my studying on the founding of our nation and all the little details surrounding it. Well, upon watching "A More Perfect Union" for about the 100th time, I decided that this whole celebration of our independence on July 4, 1776 is a rather silly thing. We should call the 4th of July "The Date on the Top of 'The Declaration of Independence' Day" or "The Day Two Days After Congress Voted To Declare Independence." We could even name it "That Random Day in July That We Don't Want To Work." Yeah, those would all be more accurate than "Independence Day" and I will give you some reasons why:

- Declaring that you are independent does not mean that you are actually independent. For example, when I was a teenager I said lots of things like, "You can't boss me around!" and "I'll come home whenever I feel like it!" Simply uttering these declarations of my independence did not make them true, because in reality my parents owned the bedroom and house I lived in and the car I drove, and thus they COULD tell me when to clean my room and when to come home. So Britain didn't care that America told them to take a hike, because they "owned" the land the Americans lived on. Just because the Americans wanted to be independent didn't make it so. It was the same way with the Confederates in the Civil War.

- The American Revolutionary War, which began in 1775, effectively ended in 1781 after the Battle of Yorktown, (though the war didn't officially end until 1783,) five years after the country declared its independence. Apparently Britain still thought America was theirs and so clearly we weren't really independent yet.

- Britain did not recognize America as its own nation until the war officially ended in 1783 at the Treaty of Paris (this was seven years after we said we were independent).

- America didn't "elect" (technically America appointed) its first president, George Washington, until 1789 (that's a LONG time after 1776).

So what's the deal? Apparently there is nothing we can do about it because the first Independence Day celebration was held on July 4, 1777. Our founding fathers may have done well setting up this new and unique government, but they sure didn't name their holidays very appropriately.

HAPPY NATIONAL FIREWORKS DAY!!