WHEN in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve political bonds connecting them with another and assume among the powers of Earth the separate and equal station to which Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to opinions of mankind requires they declare the causes impelling them to separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from consent of the governed. When any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it's the people's right to alter or abolish it and institute a 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.
Prudence dictates that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. Accordingly all experience shows people more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than right themselves by abolishing accustomed forms. When years of abuse and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evince a design to reduce them under absolute despotism it's their right and duty to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security. In every stage of these oppressions we petitioned for redress in humblest terms, answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to rule a free people. Nor were we wanting in attentions to our British brothers. We warned them of attempts by their legislature to extend unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We reminded them of circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We appealed to their native justice and magnanimity. We conjured them by ties of common kindred to disavow these usurpations inevitably interrupting our connections and correspondence. They are deaf to voices of justice and consanguinity. We must acquiesce in the necessity denouncing our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all political connections between them and Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved and that as free and independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and do all other acts independent states may of right do. Supporting this declaration, with firm reliance on protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor.
Adopted in Congress July 4, 1776
ORLANDO FL The mother of a Marine killed in Viet Nam received his dog tags in a July 4 ceremony after 2 Florida businessmen found them for sale in a Ho Chi Minh City back-alley market. Rob Stiff and Jim Gain were so sickened finding Lance Cpl Allan George Decker's tags they returned to Viet Nam to buy them and hundreds of others. Returning home they began trying to reunite soldiers and their families with the lost tags. On July 4, Decker's mother's birthday, they gave her the tags at the Orlando cemetery where he was buried in 1968. "I hope other families can find peace as I feel today," Ruth Decker said. "God's hand was in this from the beginning." Since the war ended Vietnamese field workers found much military debris: boots, helmets, badges, buttons, medals, dog tags.
A Connecticut librarian searching a cluttered storage for props for a history lecture found one of 5 flags which hung from a pole near Abraham Lincoln's theater box seat the night of his assassination April 14, 1865. The 6-ft silk banner, its blue canton holding 34 stars and an oil-painted American eagle, was folded in a glass-topped box. Civil War experts verified its authenticity.
A man ate a record 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes, destroying stunned competition in the annual Nathan's frankfurter eating contest. Takeru Kobayashi, 23, of Japan, in his first attempt at the contest, left his 19 competitors slack-jawed as he ate over 4 dozen franks with obvious relish. The 5' 7" 131-pound Kobayashi surpassed the old record of 25 in 5 minutes, 13 seconds. He didn't stop until he doubled that number, complete with the buns, by far the most amazing performance since the annual July 4 contest began in 1916. Kobayashi's technique, the Solomon method, snapped hot dogs in half and shoved both pieces into his mouth. By the end of the 12-minute event the rest of the field stopped eating to watch Kobayashi.
BROOKLINE VT - Artist Johnny Swing, a welder with a wide-ranging repertoire, learned a lot about coins joining thousands of them to produce furniture. Creating two chairs from pennies he figured out that pennies made after 1981 had an added metal causing them to disintegrate when welded. He used nickels for his next project, a sofa. Swing builds art and interiors from almost anything, including a jet engine, car windshields, cutup soda machines, firefighters' air canisters and bowling pins. Calling the large, sprawling junkyard across the street from his studio in tiny Brookline "heaven" he visits it often to find components for his work. After he built the penny chairs and sold one for $9,000, he made the nickel sofa.
PINE BLUFF, Ark. People drive by Willie Clark's house with one hand on the wheel, the other pointing out the patriotic paint job. Clark spent three hours applying red, white and blue paint to 15 sheets of vinyl siding and had it installed by his cousin Robert Monk. Clark's home includes flower pots, awnings and an aluminum fence all red, white or blue. An idea man, he often thinks of things to add. People admiring his house honk and yell when passing by. Others are appalled but that doesn't bother Clark. "As long as I don't break the law I'm all right," he said, smiling and adjusting his straw hat.