Common misconceptions aboutAmerican Independence Day

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Introduction

Common misconceptions

There are common misunderstandings about Independence Day and here are a few in all their glory, with corrections:

The wrong date?
The delegates to the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2nd, 1776, not on July 4th.

However the vote to accept the Declaration took place on July 4th, which is why it carries that date.

The painting
The painting, by John Trumbull, often called the Signing of the Declaration – isn’t. In fact it is the five-man committee who drafted the wording of the Declaration presenting it to the Continental Congress. The event depicted never actually took place.

The Liberty Bell
The idea that the Liberty Bell was rung to celebrate independence is unfortunately not true. This story comes from a fiction work called Legends of the American Revolution by George Lippard. At that time the bell tower was derelict, so the bell could not have been rung and therefore the bell did not get its crack on July 8th.

In fact the bell first cracked in March 1753 during a test ringing, it was re-cast by Pass & Stow, but the tone was very poor. It was re-cast again. It was taken down in 1778 and got the new crack much later, though there’s no record of exactly when.

It was not called the "Liberty Bell" until it was named that in an anti-slavery poem by William Lloyd Garrison.