4 July—When does life begin? We’re celebrating America’s 250^th Independence Day, so why should that theoretical question that unfortunately has become a religious and political bugbear be of interest today? Well, it’s precisely because America’s 250^th birthday is being celebrated today that it should be of interest.

Because, first, today—4 July—shouldn’t be celebrated as Independence Day; and, second, America’s 250^th birthday doesn’t really occur in 2026.

Independence Day is supposed to celebrate—wait for it—the birth of the independent American republic. (You’d be astounded how many native-born, allegedly educated Americans don’t know that.) It’s supposed to commemorate the day in 1776 when the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, thus severing the 13 revolting American colonies’ political ties to Great Britain.

Problem is, after Richard Henry Lee on 7 June 1776 introduced the resolution “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved,” and Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston were tasked with drafting an instrument formalizing the resolution, only 12 of the 13 colonies voted in favor on 2 July because New York abstained pending instruction from Albany. That instruction wasn’t given until 9 July and received in Philadelphia until 15 July. (Given the abysmal condition of the King’s Highway at the time—reminiscent of Connecticut roads now—the courier or couriers made pretty damn good time.)

Yet the impetuous but strategically and diplomatically astute Continental Congress went on record as officially approving the Declaration on 4 July and claiming it had passed unanimously in order to project a united front to Great Britain and foreign powers. But the fact remains that New York didn’t cast its vote in Philly until 11 days after 4 July.

And that’s not all. Despite the insistence of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin (and, given the political sheep-flock instinct, probably others) from the get-go that a copy of the Declaration had in fact been signed on 4 July, in 1796 Thomas McKean, a delegate from Delaware, pointed out that some signers weren’t present at that time, including several who weren’t even elected to Congress until after that date. And his assertion has pretty well been confirmed by subsequent research.

Moreover, while the seditious text had without doubt been approved in July, the formal engrossed (artistically lettered) vellum copy of “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America”—the one now in the National Archives Museum (unless Donald Trump has surreptitiously sold it to one of his Arab pals and replaced it with a fake)—wasn’t signed until 2 August, and then by only 50 of the 56 delegates at an official signing ceremony. Five of the remaining delegates made it back to Philadelphia later in 1776 to do the dirty, but the aforementioned Thomas McKean didn’t get there to add his signature until late January 1777.

So much for Independence Day the Fourth of July. Now to give shorter shrift to 1776 as the year of the nation’s birth. Although the Second Continental Congress had declared independence on 4 July 1776 or thereabouts, the United States of America wasn’t recognized as a free, sovereign, independent state under international law and by the Kingdom of Great Britain until the Treaty of Paris was signed on 3 September 1783 by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay for the Yanks and David Hartley (inventor, close friend of Franklin, MP, opponent of American war) for the Brits, officially ending the American Revolutionary War. (As a point of interest, the Kingdom of Great Britain wouldn’t become the United Kingdom until 1801, when it merged with the Kingdom of Ireland.)

So there goes 1776 and today as the one big beautiful semiquincentennial. So what about celebrating the sestercentenbnial in 2033? Maybe, maybe not. Because the United States didn’t officially become the republic we know today—or something like it, anyway—until the Constitution that’s being abused today took effect on 4 March 1789, superseding the highly imperfect Articles of Confederation, which had been adopted in 1777 and ratified in 1781 largely as a defensive measure.

So the bisesquicentennial, America’s 250^th birthday, should actually be celebrated on 4 March 2039. Because, despite a few false pregnancies, as it were, America’s life clearly began on 4 March 1789 . . .