Today is Independence Day—the Fourth of July—when we celebrate the founding of this great nation we call the United States of America.

It was on July 4, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence.

Actually, America had already been an independent country for two days before the Declaration was approved. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the resolution declaring the United States as a free nation that had been proposed the month before by Richard Henry Lee of V...

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