So When Is Independence Day?

The Continental Congress actually voted on July 2nd, 1776 to declare independence and then passed the wording of the document on the 4th and it wasn't signed until August 2nd.  Even more importantly, it was largely relegated to the dustbin of history until the 16th president referred to it in a famous speech with the reference to "four score and seven years ago" which made everyone run to their history books to see what he was referring to.  More and more information

I like to point out such interesting items to my students so they know that history is only nice and neat when one looks back at it and a bit (or a lot) messy during the actual time period.