About a year ago, NewslinQ posted a humorous yet at the same time frightening video. The Fourth of July was approaching, and everyone was preparing to celebrate by going to barbecues, parties, beaches, etc. With every holiday comes historic background and significance. Mark Dice asked several American beach goers from San Diego questions along the lines of, "Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July?" Reading this, you're probably thinking to yourself, "That's obvious; we gained our independence from Britain," but apparently, that wasn't so obvious for these Americans. Here are just a few of the questions and answers:
What do we celebrate on the Fourth of July?
As previously said, it's the day we gained independence from Britain, and we became a free country. But apparently, this beach goer believes we gained our independence from the south. A different person was asked the same question, and he didn't have the first clue about whom we broke away from. This question was asked repeatedly, and nobody could answer it, people of all genders, races and ages... interesting.
How many stars are on the American flag?
If you have basic first-grade knowledge, I would hope you could answer this question. Well, one guy couldn't, he guessed there were "50-something?" (If you can't figure this one out, there's one star for every state in America).
What year did we declare our independence?
If you thought to yourself, "1776," great! It took a lot of people some hard thinking to figure this one out. Many people said they didn't have an idea about what year it was and shied away from the question. Others took a wild guess and said 1964 — you're off by a few years there, hon.
Fortunately, there was one person in the video who knew exactly why we celebrate the Fourth of July, and it would be the last person you'd expect — an Italian tourist. So why was it so difficult for native-born Americans to recall the history of our country? Did they miss class the day it was taught? Maybe their brains tucked it away in the back of their brain where the rest of their useless information goes. Who knows? But if we don't know the basic history of America, how can our future generations take care of it and maintain the land of the free and home of the brave? It's absolutely outrageous that some people can't answer these simple questions and have absolutely no idea what it is they're celebrating.
For the full video, here's the URL. Have a laugh and feel ashamed at the same time.
