Monday, July 04, 2005

Fourth Ten

Ten Things to Celebrate American Independence Day

1. Send your online buddies free Independence Day cards over at American Greetings.com.

2. Did you know that Betsy Ross, who made the first American flag, was a disowned Quaker who had seven daughters? Do you know who she sat next to in church? Find out these answers and more about America's First Seamstress at The Betsy Ross homepage.

3. Celebrate the Fourth of July -- games, decorating and celebration tips with a little history thrown in.

4. The History Place offers info on the American revolution, along with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and a list of the founding fathers who signed it.

5. Independence Day the movie -- if there's a SF purist in the house, put on this movie and watch their head explode. Or just watch it to enjoy Will Smith punching out and blowing up invading aliens.

6. Marvelicious -- Endure the annoying cursor-chaser message to check out history, recipes, poetry, and animated fireworks graphics.

7. Explore American history without leaving your house over at the National Museum of American History/Behring Center's History Explorer page.

8. Patrick Henry offered the most electrifying line of the American Revolution: Give me liberty or give me death. But do you know what he said before that? You can read his full speech here.

9. Wilstar.com's Independence Day page offers links to historic documents, patriotic music, and a free flag screen saver.

10. To keep the little darlings occupied while you barbecue, check out Yahooligan's July 4th activities for kids.

5 comments:

  1. I never did like the movie Independence Day. Although the special effects were good, the story and plot, well, there wasn't any.

    If an alien culture had the technology to build ships of that size and complexity, why would they then use small craft to dog-fight out primitive technology, and not some other means? And up loading a computer virus to a computer system which they know nothing about?

    I'll stick with Babylon 5...It's more realistic.

    I wish everyone a safe Fouth of July!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:45 AM

    You could do what my family does--get some food and watch "Gettysburg". This year we get to upgrade the experience. My oldest son got the DVD and a surround sound system. lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. I LOVE Independence Day! I'm willing to suspend disbelief if I'm entertained...and what's more entertaining than Will Smith whupping on aliens? *g*

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think the old canard about Betsy Ross is an urban legend. I've read on several sites that no one knows who made the first flag, even though records of the time show it definitely was commissioned.

    ReplyDelete
  5. An eleventh thing to do, if like me you're not American. Some years ago a friend of mine was working at a Summer Camp in New York state, and being a good Scot, he waited until no-one was looking and replaced the stars and stripes with a saltire on July 4th.

    This was when he found out that Americans take their flag very, very seriously.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.