Independence day!!!

[Elvengirl]

Have a happy 4th everyone!

I just got back from a midnight race, probably won't sleep much.
later we'll have a barbeque and then end the night watching traditional fireworks over the water.
Sounds great, eh

GOD BLESS AMERICA

[gimli7410]

for some reason i cant edit and put a photo in but here is what i was gonna put in

[Artanis]

Happy independence day America! Cheers!

[Linaewen]

Happy Independence Day America! I wish we had one.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Linaewen
Happy Independence Day America! I wish we had one.

You just have to kick the damn English out. BoP seems to want the same thing.

Thanks to everyone who has wished us a Happy 4th of July.

[HOBBIT]

Happy July 4th!

[Lalaith]

Have a nice Independence Day. Celebrate.

[Elven Archer]

Happy 4th everyone!!

i thought this was kinda interesting and since this is the "Independence Day" thread....

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution.

These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't just fight the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted...We shouldn't.

So, take a couple of minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid . . .

LET'S ALL REMEMBER THAT FREEDOM IS "NEVER FREE"!!!!

Author unknown.

[GrayMouser]

Originally posted by Elven Archer
Happy 4th everyone!!

i thought this was kinda interesting and since this is the "Independence Day" thread....

Ummm...don't trust everything you read on the net, especially when it's anonymous


http://www.ctssar.org/articles/price_paid.htm .

http://home.nycap.rr.com/elbrecht/si...gnerindex.html

[Jonathan]

Happy Independence Day!

I wish I could be there in the US and join your celebration

[Elven Archer]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
Ummm...don't trust everything you read on the net, especially when it's anonymous

i don't. especially since i got that from a place that sends daily funnies. so that was submitted by somebody and they took it as true and sent it out july 2nd, 1999. i just thought if it was true then that's pretty interesting and i'd post it in the Idependence day thread but if it's not ture o well and i guess it's not.

[Bunnie_Queen_1146]

Happy Independence Day to all you Americans

[GrayMouser]

Not to disparage the courage of those who pledged their Lives, their Fortunes and their Sacred Honor.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Greatest piece of political philosophy ever written; and the World owes a debt to the USA for (mostly ) living up to it.

So, Happy Birthday, America, and many thanks.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Jonathan
Happy Independence Day!

I wish I could be there in the US and join your celebration

Thanks Jonathan. It would have been cool if you were here too. I like your avatar. Very cool. And I see you made it back in time to wish us a happy 4th.

As for the situation with the framers - actually most of them did suffer huge sacrifices during and after the revolution. I would have look up the outcome of all of the signers though. I could take that to a historian and find out how much of it is true.

Now I think I am off to Liberty State Park.

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Jonathan
Happy Independence Day!

I wish I could be there in the US and join your celebration

We wish you could be here, too.

I'm so happy that so many mooters are wishing a happy Independence Day for the U.S. It brings a tear to my eye. Ah, shucks... I'm getting all patriotic.

[Ruinel]

The Star Spangled Banner, Our National Anthem. Written on September 20, 1814 by Francis Scott Key at the defense of Fort McHenry.

The Brittish had captured Washington, DC (during the War of 1812), and headed for Baltimore. Fort McHenry sat at the entrance to the Baltimore harbor, at the mouth of the Patapsco River. Key had gone to the Brittish to secure the release of a doctor who had been captured by the enemy. However, after he and the now released doctor could not leave the area because the Brittish had begun bombarding Fort McHenry (morning of 9/13/1814) with 13-inch, 190 lb high trajectory exploding shells, which had up to a 2 mile range. So, he and the doctor waited on a ship under a flag of truce for the battle to end. The Brittish bombardment continued throughout the day and through the night. As the sun began to rise on 9/14/1814, Key's was sure the Fort had fallen. He raised a telescope to his eye and looked to the fort. Behold! The flag was still swirling in the breaze. The fort had not fallen! And Key began to write the Star Spangled Banner, finishing it later in a hotel room on September 20, 1814.

Please rise... and sing with me.

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

(the rest is rarely sung)
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

[Lady of Rohan]

Happy Independance day, people! (I temporarily 'borrowed' your avvy Ruinel. Hope ye dont mind! )

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Lady of Rohan
(I temporarily 'borrowed' your avvy Ruinel. Hope ye dont mind! )

Not at all.

[Elvengirl]

*right hand over heart, singing heartily*


You know during my whole childhood education I was never taught that the Star Spangled Banner was written during the War of 1812. I had always thought it was written during the Revolution. I did discover the truth not long ago, but goes to show how bad the education has become.

Anywho,

Oh say can you see.......

[azalea]

No one but A-E and a few others will get this but...

OOH! There's gonna be fireworks...fireworks!
On the Fourth of July...Red, white and blue!
Red, white and blue fireworks are lighting up the sky...fire in the sky!
etc...

(It's from Schoolhouse Rocks)