Wishing all of my fellow posters here a safe and happy 4th.
God Bless America!
The 247th Independence Day.
And still going strong.
Have a good one!!
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…and to you.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Happy ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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Thank you.
You to.
Happy 4th of July everyone!
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An oldie but a goodie:
“Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers or both, looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. The owner quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution.
These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: ‘For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’”
Michael W Smith
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Happy Birthday America!
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Happy Fourth to everyone !!!
We hear people say that they were “old white men” when the average age was 44 and some were teenagers.
Which is interesting since the life expectancy of a white male in 1776 was 38. Today it is 78.
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Definitely not old. Fun fact, the only reason “life expectancy” was so absurdly low in the past had everything to do with everything being more lethal, and nothing to do with how long a healthy man will live when spared an unnatural death.
Throughout all of human history it has been common for a healthy human being to live into their 70’s and 80’s.
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Happy July 5th…and so on…forever. 
That’s mainly due to the extremely high infant-early childhood mortality rate.
The key was your first five years. If you made it past the age of five you generally had a very long life span. 60-70.
But those first five years were ROUGH and was a constant panic for parents of that era. Mortality rate was almost 50% for children under five.
