Did you know that the space shuttle once launched the Statue of Liberty into space?
In fact, there were two "Lady Liberties" on board Discovery when it lifted off on its fourth flight in April 1985. To be fair, each statue was only 15 inches tall (38.1 centimeters), but they were also each made of copper that was removed from the full-size statue during its then-still-ongoing restoration.
After the weeklong STS-51D mission was over, one of the space-flown statues was placed on display, and the other was melted down to create copper seals, which were then sold to the public by the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Centennial Commission.
The Transportation Department rolled out what Secretary Sean Duffey called “the best program to celebrate America’s birthday.” Their Freedom Moves You campaign is all about promoting images meant to inspire reflection and excitement about the future of transportation and America.
Look out for posters and billboards like the one above.
The Justice Department has a webpage exploring the history of America’s first attorneys general, and the unique roles they played in the Revolutionary War and founding of the nation. Edmund Randolph (pictured) was appointed by President George Washington in 1789, after serving under his command during the war. He would go on to serve as secretary of state, replacing Thomas Jefferson in the role.
What’s better than celebrating with your friends? The State Department is helping spread the anniversary festivities around the world with events at U.S. embassies. Members of the Marine Corps Forces Reserve Band perform in Panama City, Panama, in support of the embassy there.
A state-of-the-art drone performance lit up the stormy skies above the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Thursday night. A follow-up show celebrating the legacy of the 26th president is scheduled for Saturday evening, at the Billings, North Dakota facility.
The U.S. Mint is dishing out party favors everyone can get their hands on — in the form of special edition coins, including dimes, nickels and quarters. They say the imagery on the coins celebrates America’s founding ideals and her long journey “toward a more perfect union.”
The National Park Service’s party plans include a celebration at Mount Rushmore from July 2-4 (tickets needed for July 3 events), as well as the International Naval Review beginning on July 4 in New York Harbor. It’s billing that as a “historic, once-in-a-lifetime gathering of the largest fleet of U.S. and international ships and aircraft in honor of America’s 250th birthday … The celebration will also feature the largest-ever flotilla of tall ships from around the world.”
The Bureau of Land Management is celebrating America’s 250th along with its own 80th birthday, this year. The bureau’s Freedom 250 Volunteer Celebration seeks to recognize and encourage volunteer clean-up and maintenance efforts around the country.
BLM employees in Alaska marked the occasion with a Freedom 250 hike to the top of Flattop Mountain in Denali National Park, where they displayed the official America 250 flag.
The Interior Department is holding its Great American Expedition initiative across the country, featuring events that highlight the heritage, recreation and resource conservation work the department and its partner organizations do.
Their site features an interactive map to help you find events near you. Additionally, national parks are free to visit until July 5.
The District of Columbia is also hosting a series of events to celebrate the nation’s 250th, with a handy calendar available on online (though, D.C. itself won’t be celebrating its 250th for a few more years). Outdoor celebrations in the district will likely be a bit subdued, however, as the area is facing a major heatwave through the holiday weekend.
Sign up for relevant weather updates at alert.dc.gov.
(AP photo)
Want a commemorative item that will always be with you? The Social Security Administration is issuing special Social Security cards for babies born from July 2 until the end of the year.
U.S. Space Force partnered with Professional Bull Riding for a “patriotic spectacle and celebration of America” featuring a bull riding competition at the Air Force Academy’s Falcon Field on June 20.
As the country marks its 250th birthday this week, Microsoft is rolling out an unlikely summer project: a six-part series of short videos, hosted by Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith, that look to American history for lessons relevant to technology and innovation today.
The premise is that every technology debate of the moment — over such issues as patents, privacy, and who gets to shape AI — has a precedent somewhere in the country’s past, and that we’d all benefit from remembering how we got here in the first place.
“We felt that the 250th anniversary of the country deserved some added reflection about the lessons of history, the role of technology, and the questions that we’re facing as a country,” explained Smith, a well-known history buff, in an interview with GeekWire this week.
In the first episode, for example, he stands in Philadelphia’s Independence Square to explain how a steamboat demonstration on the Delaware River in 1787 helped inspire the Constitutional Convention to give Congress the power to grant patents. This was the basis for the intellectual property framework that Smith describes as a bedrock of American innovation.
Savvy viewers may see some irony in a company extolling the virtues of IP protections even as Microsoft and OpenAI defend themselves against a New York Times copyright suit over the material used to train their AI models.
Asked about that, Smith made it clear he doesn’t see a contradiction.
“Every generation of technology has required a new round of legal thinking, legislation and oftentimes lawsuits, so that courts can sustain the balance that has always been needed between new innovation and the protection of things created already,” he said.
He also noted that Microsoft is often the party going to court to protect customers, pointing as one example to the company’s move this week to intervene before Europe’s top court in defense of the European Union and U.S. data-protection framework.
The six-part series was overseen by Smith’s longtime chief of staff, Carol Ann Browne, a Microsoft vice president; and produced by Kirkland, Wash.-based Trifilm. The episodes, around 3 or 4 minutes each, will roll out in the coming weeks. Smith said they recorded during existing travel plans, working the shoots into stops on trips he was already taking.
The series travels next to a Boston courtroom for the birth of privacy rights, Henry Ford’s Detroit assembly line for the spread of new technology, Cincinnati for Tocqueville’s take on nonprofits, Great Falls, Md., for George Washington’s early infrastructure ambitions, and the Lewis and Clark expedition in Montana for the value of uniting competing viewpoints.
“The 250th anniversary of the country is quite rightly an occasion to honor the past, celebrate the past,” Smith said, explaining the motivation for the series. “But let’s make sure we get something out of the past that helps us be more successful in the future.”
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