Happy 250th Birthday, America!

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson worked on the Declaration of Independence between June 11-28, 1776 in Philadelphia while serving as a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress.

He wrote the draft in his rented second-floor rooms at the home of Jacob Graff, today called the Declaration House at 7th and Market Streets in Philadelphia. 

He used a small, portable writing box with a hinged, green-baize-covered top, which is now in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

Today, 28 June 2026, is the 250th anniversary of the completion of The Declaration of Independence.

Thank you, Thomas Jefferson!

As we celebrate the 214th anniversary of the writing of America’s national anthem, I’d like to share the words of ALL the verses written by Francis Scott Key on 14 September 1814 as he watched the battle at Fort McHenry in the Battle of Baltimore.

The first verse is sung often, but many have never heard the others.

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
‘Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Fly your flag today!