Welcome To America250 Watch!
The semi-quincentennial is here... here's how you can help us cover it.
Hi everyone! Jody here. Happy almost 4th of July. One quick question for you: Are you ready for America250? Perhaps you’ve already heard today’s special video episode in which we discussed how this year’s 4th of July is basically a kick-off to the year long semi-quincentennial celebration of America’s founding that will take place throughout 2026.
We have big plans to cover the 250th anniversary, and in many ways they start today as well — with this newsletter. Starting today, we are doing two things:
Launching America250 Watch at the top of every newsletter, with links and commentary about how history is being shaped in real time.
Turning on paid subscriptions to this newsletter. By subscribing, you’ll be getting the full newsletter each week, plus bonus content — and you’ll be supporting our work to cover the semi-quincentennial in the podcast and elsewhere. Hit the upgrade button below and you’ll get all the information about the different tiers and benefits.
But anyway, we promised America250 Watch, and we’re here to deliver…
America250 Around America
We’ve got our eye on how celebrations are shaping up around the country. Here’s a taste.
All eyes are on Iowa, where Donald Trump is giving a big speech at the Iowa State Fair this evening, “kicking off a new era of American greatness” and shifting America250 into high gear. We’ll be reacting to it on Sunday’s episode.
Tennessee is gearing up for its plans: “Agriculture is the foundation upon which our nation was built,” says the main planner.
No surprise Washington, DC is going to be the home of a lot of celebrations, here’s a nice roundup.
Baseball! Alaska! Baseball in Alaska! America’s pasttime, played under the midnight sun, is going to be a big part of Alaska’s celebration next year.
You better believe there are going to be fireworks. President Trump has long been obsessed with big fireworks displays over Mt Rushmore, and it looks like he’s going to get his wish. But shoutout to Watsontown, PA for scoring a $10k grant for their show next summer.
American history is going to play out online as well — and the White House has tapped PragerU to help curate. Um.. no comment for now. We’ll talk about this on the show sometime.
More America250 To Think About
On today’s show we discussed the Trump administration’s executive order “Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History” — you can read it for yourself. It reads, in part:
Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.
And it goes on from there. Take a look, let us know which parts you want us to dig into further.
The think pieces are already flying. Here’s two differing perspectives worth reading. From The Wall Street Journal
As consumers of this quarter-mill barrage, what to do? First, stick to fundamentals: Think about what opportunities you’ve had that others around the world haven’t. Sure, we have differences, and America has made horrifying mistakes. But recognize the American experiment for the success that it is.
and in The Fulcrum
The jingoism likely to be showcased by the current administration could cast a pall on many observances. The quarter millennium for our republican democracy deserves an inspiring, unifying celebration. But when I think of nationally led commemorations under Trump’s thumb, I can only say, “Ouch.”
Okay, that’s the end of the first America250 Watch. In future weeks, parts of the newsletter will be behind the paywall, for subscribers only. This week, everyone gets it. But, please, consider an upgrade right now anyway! Help us help you keep track of how history is changing before our eyes.
Here’s what happened over the week ahead in American political history…
July 3
1863: The Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle ever fought on the American continent, ends in a major victory for the Union
1884: Dow Jones publishes its first stock index, the Dow Jones Transportation Average
1890: Idaho becomes the 43rd state
1956: President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Highway Act, the largest infrastructure project in American history
1988: An Iranian passenger jet is shot down by the missile cruiser USS Vincennes over the Strait of Hormuz
2009: Sarah Palin announces her resignation as Alaska governor
July 4
1802: The United States Military Academy opens at West Point, New York
1803: President Thomas Jefferson announces the Louisiana Purchase
1826: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both die
1832: John Neal delivers the first public lecture in the U.S. to advocate the rights of women as an Independence Day address in Portland, Maine
1854: Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison burned a copy of the constitution at a rally in Boston, calling it a “covenant with death and an agreement with Hell”
1936: Amidst the Dust Bowl, temperatures hit 111 degrees in Sioux City, Iowa
1942: Researchers at Harvard conduct the first ever napalm test — right in the middle of Harvard’s soccer field.
July 5
1775: Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition, appealing to King George III for reconciliation
1845: The Texas legislature votes to ratify a decision to join the United States of America. This marked the end, at least for a bit, of an era in which Texas changed hands, switched allegiances, went independent, and more
1852: Frederick Douglass, fugitive slave, delivers his 'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?' speech to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester
1865: The Secret Service begins operating under the Treasury Department
1935: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the National Labor Relations Act, allowing labor to organize for collective bargaining
1950: The first U.S. fatality in the Korean War: Private Kenneth Shadrick, a 19-year-old infantryman from Skin Fork, West Virginia.
July 6
1785: Congress unanimously resolves to name US currency the "dollar" and adopts decimal coinage
1970: California passes its first "no-fault" divorce law
1992: Black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson’s body is found in the Hudson
2004: Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry chooses Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina as his running mate
July 7
1853: Harriet Jacobs, a formerly enslaved woman, writes her first letter to the editor, and begins to work on her memoirs. Her story, published almost ten years later under a pseudonym as “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” would paint a picture of slavery and sexual violence that was often not represented
1863: Orders barring Jews from serving under U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant are revoked
1865: Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt are executed for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
1930: Hoover Dam construction begins
1947: Two ranchers stumble across a downed flying object in the middle of the Nevada desert
1958: President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act, bringing Alaska on as the 49th state.
1980: The first women enroll at West Point.
July 8
1776: Colonel John Nixon gives the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia
1777: Vermont introduces a new constitution, becoming the first U.S. state to abolish slavery
1853: Commodore Matthew C. Perry sails into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to Western influence and trade
1896: William Jennings Bryan delivers his "cross of gold" speech at the Democratic convention in Chicago
1959: The first Americans are killed in South Vietnam when guerrillas strike a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) compound in Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon
July 9
1776: The Declaration of Independence is read to George Washington's troops in New York.
1846: The territory of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac River is returned to Virginia through an Act of Congress
1846: The U.S. takes control of San Francisco from Mexico.
1850: President Zachary Taylor dies
1992: Al Gore is tapped as a vice-presidential candidate
2009: Republicans introduce legislation to ban the creation of human-animal hybrids
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