The Declaration Wasn't Signed on July 4. So What Was?
Published · 27 min
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On 9 July 1776 a document was read to Washington's army in New York, and that night a crowd pulled down the King's statue. We think we know that document. But the vote for independence came on 2 July, Congress spent two and a half days cutting Jefferson's draft by about a quarter — including its longest, angriest passage, about the slave trade — and most of the signatures were added on 2 August.
Narration in this film is a synthetic, cloned voice. Sources and image credits are in the YouTube description.
Chapters
- 00:00 Channel opening
- 00:10 The statue on Bowling Green
- 02:27 Loyal subjects
- 04:16 Common Sense
- 05:25 The colonies move first
- 06:56 The Committee of Five
- 09:01 The vote
- 11:46 What Congress cut
- 14:45 The fourth of July
- 16:20 What it actually says
- 19:01 The second of August
- 21:33 The journey of a piece of parchment
- 24:31 What the words became
