The US Bicentennial and Semiquincentennial Explained

Join us for a special episode as we rewind to 1976 and the United States Bicentennial! Remember the patriotic fervor, the tall ships sailing into New York Harbor, the Bicentennial quarters, and the widespread sense of national pride? We'll delve into what those celebrations truly meant to Americans at a time of significant social and political change. How did the nation reflect on its first 200 years, and what hopes and anxieties colored the vision for the future?

Then, we'll fast-forward to the imminent 250th anniversary in 2026 – the Semiquincentennial. With just a year to go, preparations are well underway across the country. What lessons can we draw from the Bicentennial as we approach this new milestone? How has America changed in the past 50 years, and what does this upcoming anniversary mean for a diverse and evolving nation? We'll explore the themes and initiatives shaping the 2026 commemorations, from historical reflection to a forward-looking vision for the next quarter-millennium. Tune in as we bridge the past and the future of the American story.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:06

Hello, Kelly, Hey, Alex, how are you happy Fourth of July? To you? Tomorrow's Fourth of July. That's right, we're coming up on Independence Day. We just had Canada Day and Independence Day. Do you know how old America is this year? 258 years? No? 249 249 Okay, which means next year is the big 250 Oh, yeah, 2026 1776 Yeah, 1776 is the year that we go with. Yeah, when we were kids in 1976 we were we six, seven years old, yeah, and it was the bison American bicentennial. Do you remember that? Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the American bicentennial. Because if you weren't alive in 1976 you missed out on just red, white and blue, everything. Do you remember how crazy it was you missed out on those Bicentennial quarters? Remember the Bicentennial quarter? Do you remember how everything in I guess that was like first grade, like between first and second grade for us, probably, yeah, just everything. People went overboard on everything being star, spangled, this and that, and red, white and blue, this and that, everything was and there were reasons. I remember my my parents signed me up for five lessons. I've never used them since then. Oh, I wish that were true. I hope it was true. I wanted them to call me five dog. But apparently someone else had that. Do you remember? What can you you know the famous picture with the two drummers and the guy with the Fife in the head bandage. Do you remember what that? You know the picture I'm talking about, the painting? Yeah, I can, I can picture it in my mind. But it's called Fife and Drum getting down. No, no. That that? It's called the spirit of 76 spirit of 76 That's right. There was even a song called the spirit of 76 I think, right. Well, so in 1976 of course, it refers to 1776 but in 1976 that spirit of 76 really became the mantra, and everything was about the spirit of 76 now, just to put this in a larger context, that Watergate had just been a few years prior to that, in 1975 was the fall of Saigon. So there was a lot of kind of malaise about being an American and President Ford, the new president, wanted something of a kind of a reset of a major American patriotism. It was probably at an all time low. So it was really important to him that we did it up big with the bicentennial. And that idea of the spirit of 76 they found that Thomas Jefferson wrote about the spirit of 76 and he talked about how, you know, we were being ushered into a new era of freedom, and that the we could it would be not just for Americans, but All people in the world, free them from the burden of oppression and ignorance and open their eyes to the right of mankind to overturn the power of tyrants and equality over inequality. And you can hear the fife and drum in the background, as I say this, right? Yes, definitely. And this whole idea about the founding fathers being almost this like, almost like our Greek gods that they, you know, they're, they're not just people anymore. They're people. They're gods that founded this country. And everything they said is how we have to be from from now on, right, that spirit of 76 that was a really big deal in trying to kind of put this country right back on track after some pretty rough, uh, beginning of the 1970s Do you remember the the logo for the bicentennial? Think if I showed it to you, you would remember, but it was like a white star, white five point star. And then on the outside of it was kind of a curved red, white and blue star. And it was designed by the same person that designed the NASA logo. So a lot of those kind of curvy, oh, wow, curvy, yeah. It was kind of a curvy line, curvy straw star, the bicentennial of Fauci. Eventually began in on April 1, 1975 with the American Freedom Train, which was a train that went on a 20 month, 21 month tour of all 48 contiguous states. Just went from state to state celebrating the bicentennial. They had a big Bicentennial parade on the Fourth of July in Washington, DC, with the Queen Elizabeth was there, which is kind of, I guess, funny, yeah, but they were all into it too. Who do you think the Grand Marshal was of the now, that's a big deal, right? And it wasn't of the Bicentennial parade 1976 it was not a politician. It was an, I'm gonna say Evil Knievel. It's a good guess. It was Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash, that's a good choice. Yeah, I would have thought it would be like John Wayne or somebody, or maybe like, I might have guessed somebody like an actor, like, yeah, yeah, Ronald Reagan, yeah, no, but he was a politician by then too. Oh, yeah, you think he was governor of California by then? No, but Johnny Cash is kind of the perfect, you know, bridging of the north and south and kind of, kind of a, I guess Elvis would have been a good choice. Sure, sure. Evil kineva would actually been a good choice. Also did. Did Elvis die in 76 or 78 seven or seven or eight? Yeah. Okay, so he was still alive in November of 1976 they did a reenactment of the crossing of the Delaware um frozen water and the whole thing. And you know, they've done it every year since then. That was the first time they had done it. But every year, in November, you can go up there and watch those guys in a really cold and icy waters and frigid it's, yeah, it's a whole thing. They were tough back then. They were definitely tougher. The we've talked about that in multiple episodes about how people and heartier, right? They were Hardy. Well, I guess in 1776 for sure, I don't know about 1976 1976 they were not they're probably tougher than we are now, for sure, you think we're getting less tough as a country. The physical city of Philadelphia was really on display that whole year too. Obviously, that's where the country was founded. It was the host of of the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball all star games, and the Final Four were in Philadelphia that year. The the Philadelphia ABA basketball team was named the 76 years to kind of go on the same theme the Super Bowl that year. That was back before they had the halftime shows that we know now. It was done by a group called up with people. Do you remember up with people? Up with people? Dead end for you. So if you're too young to remember up with people was this really cheesy kind of dance truth dance troupe that would sing all these really uplifting, inspirational songs, but really corny and really saccharine and and just like you wouldn't be able to watch it today. It would be unwatchable today, but it was back then. We just assumed that was entertainment. Yeah. I mean, everything, everything travels in, in, in cycles, right? I actually think it would probably be very entertaining today. It's so awful. Yeah, maybe their halftime show that year of the Super Bowl was called, 200 years and just a baby, a tribute to America's bicentennial. Nice, just getting started, folks. We're just getting started. Fire hydrants all over the United States were painted red, white and blue that year. Oh yeah. I remember where you lived in your town. Did you have a red, white and blue fire hydrant? Oh yeah, yeah. I can, I can remember those you mentioned the quarters when we first started talking about this. They were separate quarters that were minted, that were only 1976 quarters that had a special backing. Did you just collect quarters? Yeah, yeah. You know, I actually have, I think all of the states, or most of the state quarters, but, but for the Bicentennial, I think I have a couple of those, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was, what was the backing? Was, like, the ribbon, yeah, it was, it wasn't the standard evil. It was a little bit different. And I think one of them had, I think there were a few, like three or four, and I think one of them had the the Fife and Drum guy, yep, yep. You're right. You're right. Schoolhouse Rock, that year became history rock. They called it America rock. That was the year that I'm just a bill came out. And, oh yeah, the preamble. You've mentioned the preamble. One. On, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union. It was established justice in it was all about getting people, primarily kids, our age, to be more interested in the country. Again, remember, people our age weren't really part of Watergate or Vietnam War. We that was just, we were just coming up when all that stuff, so World War Two Bicentennial was kind of the beginning of it all for us. Yeah, we were very impressionable. Rocky came out that year. And if you remember, in Rocky Apollo Creed, there's lots of big American patriotic themes where Rocky is, I mean, Apollo Creed is dressed like George Washington in one of the fights and and then Uncle Sam and the other both guys have very patriotic. Rocky has the red, white and blue, uh, shorts that he wears. The Magna Carta was on display in the capital for that year. It was there's only four clap copies of the Magna Carta. And if you were in DC that year, you could go look at that. They had the tall ships in New York Harbor. We lived in Michigan. And the license plates that year were red with a with a little bit of blue and white. Stars, beautiful. One of the best license plates I think I've ever seen. If we were to rate license plates, yes, let's spend a little time. Yeah, we should do that one show, just a special a dirt nap city, specially bad ones. I mean, I think I remember when we moved to Texas, it was just white with black letters, yeah, that was lame. That was lame. That was lame. And then they ended up putting the ones with the the space shuttle on them. That was kind of cool. Some license plates are so distracting that you can't even tell what state it's from. I liked it when you didn't have you didn't have to read back when I used to do car trips as a kid and you couldn't buy all the specialty plates. I remember, you could tell a license plate before you even read the state. You just knew by the color design, the color or whatever, yeah, yeah. Pennsylvania used to have those yellow ones, yeah. And Arizona had the the cactus on it, sure, yeah, yeah. It was a different, different time. License plate spotting was a was a big deal when you're an only child on a 24 hour car trip for sure. Oh, yeah. So I mentioned next year. Next year is the 250th anniversary, and I suspect that we're gonna have not exactly what we had in 1976 but it'll be a little more than we're getting for 249 first of all, what? What do you call? That's what I was gonna say. First of all, there's debate on what you call it. Now, you may remember, in 1986 we had the 100 and 50th anniversary of Texas. Do you remember that? Do you remember what that was called? Yeah, SESQUI sesquicentennial. Sesquicentennial. So I think that this should be called the BI sesquicentennial. SESQUI meaning half 100 by meaning two. So by Sesquicentennial is what I think you should call it. And some people are calling it that. But the other word for it is semi quincentennial, semi, meaning you're both horrible semi, those are both semi quincenten, so those are your two choices. Semi, how about 250 How about 250 or buy SESQUI I like buy sesquicentennial. Let's just call it 250 a kick and ass. Do you remember the sesquicentennial in Texas? Do you remember that we went, I don't remember if you were on this trip, but a bunch of us went down to the old bank where they unveiled the largest Texas flag in the world. Do you remember this in Sugar Land? It was, I wouldn't call it a trip. I mean, it was in Sugar Land, so we just drove over to it. And largest Texas flag in the President Bush spoke. Was he Governor Bush at the time? No, it was President. It was Vice President Bush, who would be become the first this was 86 Yeah, yeah, it was Vice President Bush spoke. It was at the bank in Sugar Land, the one that's the gold one. Yeah, they had the world's largest Texas flag, which, I gotta be honest, thought would be bigger. I mean, it covered the whole bank. It was like a six story building, but I mean this, they're probably a bigger ones on college football now, yeah, exactly like the one that covers DKR during the halftime show. I was a little disappointed, but that Sesquicentennial was kind of burned in our brain. So I'm going with bi sesquicentennial. Bi sesquicentennial, would you say the other option was semi, semi quince centennial? Oh, that's horrible. Those are bi sesquicentennial. Both good scrabble words, though, probably, huh? Yeah, yeah. Get you lots of points. So. Next year we will have new coins. They will introduce new quarters, I believe. But, you know, a quarter isn't as worth as much as it used to be, and nobody carries quarters around. Maybe they should do the maybe they should do the penny like the last hurrah of the penny. This would be the last penny we ever do. I think they are getting rid of the penny. Next year, there's going to be big celebrations in Boston, Charleston, New York City and Philly, but I don't see the level of you know, nationwide celebrations that we had in 1976 the World Cup will be here next summer. So there will be games in Boston area, Philly, New York City, maybe. But you know, honestly, on the fourth of July, there's probably just gonna be soccer played, which is a lot different than 1976 Yeah, not even very American. Check this out. This is what I want to run by you. They're gonna bury a time capsule in Philadelphia. And we we've talked about time capsules in this Carl say we have episode, and they're going to be a time capsule in Philadelphia that's to be opened on July 4, 2276, the 500th anniversary of this nation of ours. Okay? 500 anniversary? What would you put in a time capsule from 2026 that you think people in 2276 would be interested in? I would put in a dirt nap city sticker, of course, 100% I would put in a I A, hmm, I probably put in some of the cell phones from today, like a, like an iPhone, 15 or 17, or whatever it is at that time, anything on it, though, you know, you have to, you have to treat everything like an artifact. I think part of the problem with the Sagan thing was they put in a record player and a record and it's like, that's technology, just dead technology. Yeah, yeah. And then I'd probably put in a map of of the world before all the coastal cities get flooded. Here's what it looked like. Sorry, suckers. Well, unlike the Sagan one, where you're putting you're making something for aliens that don't even really read your language or anything, or maybe even, I mean, people 250 years in the future. Kind of are aliens? You think so they're but think about us compared to people 250 years ago. Yeah. So you think we are, we are strange creatures to them well, but they still strange and soft, so you but we can still read things that they wrote. We can understand it. Yeah, right. It's, it's not like another language you can read. I mean, I guess it's, it's a little more formal, and they, they're um, S's look like F sometimes or whatever. But, you know, they're right with quill pens, but you for the most part, we can still read their language, assuming that people are still speaking English in the US. I think you can, unlike the aliens, you can actually put things for them to read. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. Say the word aliens again. You said it like Carl Sagan aliens, yeah. What would you put in this, in this time capsule? I think you have to be careful not to go to pop culture. You have to, I think you were on the right track with putting things like maps and money and maybe some gold. And then descriptions of all these things. This is how we did this. And a Twinkie. You got to throw a Twinkie in there. How about a booby trap? Put it, put a booby trap in there and make it blow up when they open it. Fu future people will be kind of on brand, wouldn't it to what we were like in in 2026 2026 we're seeing a glimpse 250, years. Yeah, I just think it's so interesting, because you always think of of these time capsules as being like, you know, 100 years later, but the 500th anniversary of the US, man, I hope the US is still going strong. Then I really hope, I hope it's but there's a chance that might not, even you know, be the US anymore, and might not, might not be, might not be earth anymore. Yeah, you're right. So maybe this might just be, might just be a some sort of future dinosaur ripping that thing open and trying to find that Twinkie or monkeys. Yeah, for sure. All right, man. Well, Happy Fourth of July to you and yours. Yes. God bless America. God bless America. For 250, more years at least, you. Flags are waving in the summer sky. Eagles soar in freedom's battle cry. Pickup trucks rumble down the old dirt lane, red, white and blue pumping through our blue pumping through our veins. Let's call it freedoms to fit the Jubilee. Raise your fear and toast to liberty. From the mountains to the shining sea, we're the land of the bold and the home of the free. Me, fireworks burst like stars in the night, a nation's roar echoes burning bright crack open a cold one. Cheers to the past. This is a legacy built to last. Let's call it freedoms 250 Jubilee. Raise your beer and toes to liberty. From the mountains to the shining sea, we're the land of the bold and the home rev, rev those engines. Let the music play, wave that flag like it's Independence Day. Together we stand. No one tears us apart. This is America, straight from the heart. Let's call it freedoms 250 Jubilee. Raise your beer and toes to liberty. From the mountains to the shining sea, we're the land of the boat and the heart. See we're the land of the boat and the home of the free