History of the Fourth

Americans get a natural long weekend for their Fourth this year -- and for the next three, I guess. In honour of the day, American Heritage magazine's website has a nice explanation of how the Fourth of July replaced John Adams's preference, the Second of July, and what the second Fourth looked like in Philadelphia. Official celebrations could be contentious even then; Philadelphia was concerned about what the loyalists might do, or indeed what the patriots might do to the loyalists.