Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the adoption and signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026. But for those of us old enough to remember the United States celebration of the 200th anniversary in 1976, the current semiquincentennial celebration seems to pale in comparison to the 1976 Bicentennial.
In 1976, you could not escape hearing about the Bicentennial. In 2026, most of what we hear about the 250th celebration seems related to controversy and cancellations rather than celebrations. There are books about the American Bicentennial celebration on Amazon (and that is not counting things like Bicentennial cookbooks published in many communities in 1976). I don’t think there are many, if any, 250th celebration cookbooks, and it is hard to imagine a very long book for future generations to read about our current efforts to celebrate.
What happened to our party? There are a number of reasons one may point to for the disappointment with the current celebration, including the divisions on social media and other forms of entertainment that makes it more difficult for uniting Americans around anything. Maybe we have lost something about our connections to our communities that did much of the 1976 planning. Also, it is easier to say “Bicentennial” than “Semiquincentennial,” so how do you celebrate something you can’t remember the name of? Some argue that the government failed to plan properly. Or maybe the current White House resident hijacked the holiday to make it more about himself, making the Semiquincentennial partisan versus the more (but not completely) bipartisan Bicentennial.
So, instead of celebrating, for many, the day is more for acknowledging the faults of the country and thinking of ways to heal. For others, they will have their barbeques and fireworks, but it will be just like any other Fourth of July.
Maybe 200 seems like a more important number than 250, or maybe people do not feel like celebrating. Yet,in 1976 we also also faced inflation, gas shortages, and other issues.
Maybe, a failure of commercialism is partly to blame. Whether good or bad, fewer media sources and less product access allowed companies in 1976 to create more focused marketing around the Bicentennial that continuously reminded us of the celebration. All of your favorite products, including soda and beer, included special versions labeled for the Bicentennial.
In our house, we bought Bicentennial medallions off television, giving them as gifts. I also remember drinking a lot of 7-Up to collect the Bicentennial cans, collecting a can representing each of the fifty states. When you stacked up the fifty cans they revealed an image of Uncle Sam.
Yes, today, you may buy 250 shirts and hats on Amazon or at your local store. But anyone can make a shirt and sell it online these days. For better or worse, there is no official merchandise that any of us would recognize.
And, finally, a more fractured entertainment universe means we do not today have the daily reminders of the anniversary we had in 1976. For more than a year, we watched the Bicentennial Minutes, remembered by most Baby Boomers and members of Generation Jones (like me). Every night on TV there was a favorite actor or personality who would tell us an important event that happened 200 years ago that night. As July 4 and the Declaration signing approached, each episode reminded us of the approaching holiday. With no Netflix, no cell phones, no streaming options, and mostly just network TV, the Bicentennial Minutes were a communal event.
The Bicentennial Minutes ran for more than two years, beginning on July 4, 1974 and running through December 31, 1976. The last episode featured President Gerald R. Ford.
During that time, as a kid, I took out my blue tape recorder every night (audio only, we did not have VCRs in those days), waiting between CBS shows for a few minutes before 9pm. As the Bicentennial Minute started, I pushed the Record/Play button to record the audio off of the TV. We did not have the Internet so it was the only way to preserve the important history lessons we received every night on TV.
Here is actor Darren McGavin on April 2, 1976.
I don’t recall how many I recorded. And I don’t know how often I ever listened to the audio cassette. I do not even remember what happened to that cassette tape. But making it seemed important to do at the time.
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