Even though America’s 250th birthday is still one year away, there happens to be a fun, unique, mathematical fact about this year’s 249th birthday that will help illustrate just how young America is as a nation.
To do that, we can start with the age of Thomas Jefferson on the day he passed away — significantly enough, on the day America was celebrating its 50th birthday: July 4, 1826. Jefferson was 83 years old.
And, as an interesting sidebar, our third president was not the only commander-in-chief whose life was tied historically to America’s birthday. John Adams also died within five hours of Jefferson on July 4, 1826. Plus, five years later, on July 4, 1831, our fifth president and Founding Father James Monroe passed away.
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Not to be too maudlin, there was one president who was actually born on the Fourth of July. In 1872, Calvin Coolidge came into the world and would grow up to become America’s 30th president.
So, what does Jefferson’s age of 83 have to do with this year’s national birthday celebration? Well, if you find an 83-year-old person living in America and go all the way back to the year he was born, you would find yourself in 1942. Now, in 1942, find a person who was born 83 years ago, and that would bring us back to 1859. Finally, find a person born 83 years back from there, and you arrive at … 1776!
Just three 83-year-olds living back to back to back takes you to the year our nation was founded.
And while we’re pondering this “age thing,” it’s also fun to look at the relative youth of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, keeping in mind that 56 delegates representing the 13 original colonies actually put their very “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” on the line when they put their John Hancock to the document (and, yes, one of them was indeed John Hancock). Also, due to present-day controversy, it is worth noting that none of the representatives signed using an autoquill.
The average age of the signers was 44 years, which happened to be George Washington’s age at the time. And Washington’s nemesis across the pond, the other George, King George III of England? He was 38.
The oldest signer of the Declaration was (no surprise), Benjamin Franklin, at age 70.
Finally, by now you have probably done the math to figure out the age that Thomas Jefferson, the document’s chief author, was when he signed: 33.
Now, enjoy the celebrations, and as you get ready for the biggest one of all, next year’s 250th, remember to honor our nation’s birth as John Adams suggested we do. Adams wrote:
“It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
A version of this article appeared originally atAmerican Thinker.
Albin Sadar is author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. Albin is also the former producer of “The Eric Metaxas Show” on the Salem Radio Network.
