{"id":13911,"date":"2025-07-04T11:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=13911"},"modified":"2025-07-17T11:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T18:08:18","slug":"semiquincentennial-commences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2025\/07\/04\/semiquincentennial-commences\/","title":{"rendered":"Semiquincentennial Commences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/countdown-to-america-250th-birthday-how-we-overcame-similar-division-in-1976-ac12f649?st=TeW6MT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from the Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Countdown to America\u2019s 250th Birthday<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. was in a similarly disjointed mood heading into 1976 but pulled off a spectacular national party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By\u00a0Paul Beston<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Bicentennial (1976)\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OVkCsWbLues?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Fifty years ago, the U.S. was anticipating a major national anniversary only 12 months away: the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. The road to 1976 was rocky. Americans endured a decade of disorienting social change and tumult ranging from political violence to urban riots. They lost thousands of young men in a traumatic and unsuccessful war. A generational economic boom was over. Social optimism had degenerated into suspicion and bitterness. An American president resigned after a coverup failed to conceal what many had long suspected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The nation had good reason to eye the bicentennial with caution. But Billboard\u2019s No. 1 song on July 4, 1975, was Captain &amp; Tennille\u2019s \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together,\u201d and a year later, the country got itself together to stage a memorable celebration. On July 4, 1976, tall ships and other vessels from dozens of nations filled New York Harbor.\u00a0Arthur Fiedler\u00a0conducted the Boston Pops in a concert before a record-breaking audience of more than 400,000 on the Charles River Esplanade. In Washington, grand marshal\u00a0Johnny Cash\u00a0marched at the head of a massive parade down Constitution Avenue. Los Angeles staged its own great procession on Wilshire Boulevard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/countdown-to-america-250th-birthday-how-we-overcame-similar-division-in-1976-ac12f649?st=TeW6MT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at WSJ<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from the Wall Street Journal Countdown to America\u2019s 250th Birthday The U.S. was in a similarly disjointed mood heading into 1976 but pulled off a spectacular national party. By\u00a0Paul Beston Fifty years ago, the U.S. was anticipating a major national anniversary only 12 months away: the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. The road to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}