Today, September 17th, is National Constitution Day, the holiday where we celebrate the signing of the US Constitution in 1787, as well recognize those people who have become US citizens.
We assume that most of our readers already know most everything about this auspicious holiday, but just in case here are a few interesting facts about Constitution Day, courtesy of your neighborhood historians, the Lost and Founders:
Fact: Constitution Day was established in 1787 as the second act of the Constitutional Convention (the first obviously being the signing of the document itself).
Fact: Due to a printing error in the Farmer's Almanac in which notice of the new holiday was spread across the young country, many states began celebrating "Constitutional Day" for several years. This involved making sure one had at least one bowel movement in the morning, and eating foods high in fiber. Communication between states in these early decades was so poor that the error was actually not corrected until 1791 (4 years later) when government officials began campaigning for office during the month of September and were shocked to discover how their constituency had been celebrating the signing of our document of law. In 1792, the holiday was renamed to "Citizenship Day" and a focus was placed on newly recognized citizens in order to remove some of the constitutional
Fact: The town of Lousville, Ohio, began celebrating Constitution Day as a separate holiday from Citizenship day in 1952 and has since referred to itself as Constitution Town. The town was unaware that there was already a holiday celebrating the same thing that was using a different name because of some confusion and shit.
Fact: Citizenship Day was renamed back to Constitution Day (also merging in the local Constitution Day celebrated in Ohio) in 2004 in order to mandate that all public schools focus their educational efforts on the Constitution and its impact for at least one day each year.
Fact: The proper celebratory greeting for this holiday is "Merry Constitution Day!" or "Constitoot toot a lootion to you!" *
For anyone living in the DC area - the Lost and Founders will be doing our annual Constitution Day bake-sale today in the foyer of the National Archives building. Come take a look at the document that laid the groundwork for our nation, and take a delicious bite out of a Constitution Cookie while you're at it! Proceeds to go the Lost and Founders Historical Research Foundation.
Merry Constitution Day everyone!
*Editor's note: It's really not hard to see how this was misconstrued.
