The United States celebrates the 240th anniversary of its independence from Britain Monday with a national holiday full of picnics, parades and fireworks across the country.
President Barack Obama is hosting military families for a barbecue at the White House and a concert by Kendrick Lamar and Janelle Monae. If rain forecasted Monday night in Washington holds off, they will have a good view of the city's major fireworks display on the nearby National Mall.
But the key to the holiday is just down the street from the White House at the National Archives building. That is the home of the Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776.
"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," it says, laying out some of the founding principles of the nation.
More than anything, the declaration is a sharp rebuke of Britain's King George, calling him a tyrant and saying he has repeatedly ignored the pleas of the American colonies for better treatment.
Among the 27 grievances Jefferson details are Britain stationing a large number of armed troops in the colonies, cutting off their trade to the rest of the world, imposing taxes without their consent and suspending local legislatures.
"He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us," the declaration says about the king. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns and destroyed the lives of our people."
What would come to be known as the Revolutionary War had been going on for about a year at that point, and would continue until 1783 when the Treaty of Paris formally recognized the U.S. states as sovereign and independent. The treaty is also part of the National Archives collection.
The July 4th holiday includes a traditional reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the Archives. Inside the building, the original document is prominently displayed along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for the public to see.
Shortly after the reading, a parade attended by thousands of people begins in front of the building on Constitution Avenue and stretches 10 blocks to the west, ending just after passing between the White House and a monument to the first U.S. president, George Washington.
via Voice of America http://ift.tt/29oPMat
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