... For telling fortunes better than they do ...

Here's the short before the main feature today:




July 4, 1964 -
The Beach Boys' song I Get Around topped the charts and stayed there for 2 weeks on this date.



Sales went on to exceed a million records.


As I am celebrating this holiday like many American - at the beach, drinking Coronas (with a slice of lime), here is an abbreviated Today in History:
July 4, 1776 -
The Continental Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John Hancock--President of the Continental Congress--and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary (among others,) without dissent.



However, the New York delegation abstained as directed by the New York Provisional Congress. The United States was very busy for the next couple of years and didn't get around to commemorating Independence Day until 1796.


July 4, 1826
Frienemies Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both lay dying in there respective homes on this date. Jefferson, the nation's third president, deeply in debt at age 83, died at one o'clock in the afternoon and correctly surmised that Adams had outlived him. John Adams, the second president died at age 90 in Braintree, Mass, just a few hours after Jefferson. Adams' last words were, Thomas Jefferson still survives.



It was exactly 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.


July 4, 1831 -
James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, died in New York City at age 73 on this date.



This made him the third ex-President to die on Independence Day. How patriotic.


July 4, 1850 -
President Zachary Taylor stood hatless in the sun for hours listening to long-winded speeches. He returned to the White House and attempted to cool off by eating cherries, cucumbers and drinking iced milk. Severe stomach cramps followed.



It is likely that Taylor's own physicians inadvertently killed him with a whole series of debilitating treatments. The cur lingered on until he unpatriotically died on July 9th.


July 4, 1862 -
Charles Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician and nude child photographer, told little Alice Liddell on a boat trip the fairy tale he had dreamed up for her called Alice's Adventures Underground on this date. We assume he had his pants on at the time.



Three year later, to the day, the first edition of Alice in Wonderland was published under Dodgson's pen name, Lewis Carroll.


July 4, 1884 -
The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States in ceremonies at Paris, France, on this date. The 225-ton, 152-foot statue was a gift from France in commemoration of 100 years of American independence. The French, always the comedians, presented the gift eight years late of the centennial celebration and left the shipping and handling costs to the United States.



Created by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was installed on Bedloe Island (now Liberty Island) in New York harbor in 1885. It was dedicated on October 28, 1886.


Once again, ACME would also like to bring you on this 4th of July a rare Bruce Springsteen clip of "Fourth of July", sponsored by ACME Split Buns -Slip your ACME Snappy Weinie - The Almost 100% all beef frank (but hey don't ask what the other stuff in it is) in our Buttered Split Buns and feel the difference:





And so it goes.