The 4th of July Has a Dark Secret | But Why?

Tomorrow, most of the country celebrates the day America declared independence — on the date, for the reason, everyone learned in school. Almost none of it is accurate. The actual vote happened two days earlier. The famous signed document wasn't finished until a month later. And buried in Thomas Jefferson's original draft was a scathing condemnation of the slave trade — cut at the last minute, and quietly replaced with a line that's still in the Declaration today. This is the real story of the summer of 1776: the wrong date, the missing passage, and the 76-year wait for one man to stand up and ask the country what its own holiday actually meant. — — — SOURCES: National Archives — Declaration of Independence, official milestone record (July 2 vote, July 4 adoption, August 2 engrossing/signing): https://www.archives.gov/milestone-do... National Archives — "Did You Know... Independence Day Should Actually Be July 2?": https://www.archives.gov/press/press-... Library of Congress — First printed Declaration, deleted slavery passage (full transcription): https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating... American Battlefield Trust — Jefferson's original draft condemning the slave trade: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/pr... HISTORY.com — Why Jefferson's anti-slavery passage was removed from the Declaration: https://www.history.com/articles/decl... Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" (delivered July 5, 1852, Rochester, NY) — New England Historical Society, summary with excerpted text: https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.c... — — — That's how it simply goes — — — ABOUT SIMPLY GOES IT Simply Goes It™ explores the strange things your brain and body do without your permission — why time speeds up as you age, why your own voice sounds wrong, why your brain throws away most of your memories — in simple illustrated stories. New explainers regularly. Subscribe and figure out how it all simply goes. #4thofjuly #independenceday #freedom250 #america250 #america250thanniversary