Documents thread through of our lives: birth certificates, marriage licenses, tax forms, contracts, and so forth. Documents are central to our village, city, state and national governance. Words that seal the commitments of "men" are powerful and can ring for a long time. Take our founding document, The Declaration of Independence. This one document set the tone and rules for our united states. As we celebrate July 4, let's have a history lesson celebrating our beginnings. Did you know?:

• Independence was declared from Britain on July 2, 1776 by the Continental Congress (13 colonies) in Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776.
• The number of people living in the U.S. as they became a new nation was 2.5 million. Now we have well over 300 million.
• The average age of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was 45. Thirteen were under the age of 35 and 7 were older than 60. The youngest signers, Thomas Lynch and Edward Rutledge, were 26 years old, and Benjamin Franklin was 70.
• There was a committee of five formed to write the Declaration: Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Livingston, and Sherman. Robert Livingston never signed the Declaration thinking it was too soon to assert independence from England.
• Thomas Jefferson's first draft was changed 86 times and shortened. Many of the lines of this document were based on Virginia's Declaration of Rights by George Mason and Philosopher John Lock's and his "contract theory of government."
• Of the 56 signers, all but 8 were born in the colonies. They had various occupations: 24 lawyers, 11 merchants, 9 farmers and plantation owners. Seven were educated at Harvard.
• John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, was the first to sign the document. The other signatures were added on various dates, the last being Matthew Thornton, from New Hampshire, who signed on November 4, 1776.
• Congress initially kept the names of the men who signed the document secret until January 1777 to protect them from charges of treason, punishable by death.
• The Declaration has only left the capital twice. The first time was when the British attacked Washington during the War of 1812, and the second time was during World War II from late 1941 until the fall of 1944 when it was stored at Fort Knox.

When you have time, read our founding document. It is our history, it is our beginning, it proclaimed our nation to the world. It is the documentation of why we celebrate the 4th of July. Do you remember these famous words from our document?