(BTW, I can only assume that Cage has a department that works on wigs since over the years it has gotten really strange and I'm guessing that someone is trying to justify their budget year to year.)
Anyway, the topic of "National Treasure" came up since how could it not? And so I said "You know what my favorite part of the movie was? Let's get the treasure map... on the Declaration of Independence!" I mean, really, who green lit both this *and* a sequel.
Then, it hit me... Where is the Declaration of Independence stored? National Archives in DC, right? Well... WTF is it doing there? I mean, we wrote the document to tell Britain to piss off, right? So, shouldn't it be like... in Britain?
I mean, it's like this. America is like Britain's kid, right? So, imagine this situation. You're Britain, bopping along like nothing is wrong. Sure, your teenager has been bitching recently, but that's what teenagers do. They'll get over it. Then, one day your teenager sends you a letter saying "Hey - you're a dick and I'm leaving." If I'm Britain, I'm not exactly going to be keeping that letter in the baby book or anything. And after we fight and I get my ass handed to me, I'm not exactly going to handing back something so valuable to them. So, what's the deal?
Well, I went to wikipedia to figure it out. Lemme just say that I didn't get nearly the whole story from elementary social studies.
What I thought happened was that the states got together and decided that this is how it's gonna be, banged out the Declaration of Independence, and the war was on. (I remember the reason that John Hancock wrote his name really big was cuz if things didn't work out, he didn't want the King of England to have to put on his reading glasses to read his name. Again, leading me to believe that the King actually had *seen* the declaration.) Apparently, what actually happened was that the revolutionary war broke out in 1775 with state militias just deciding "Fuck it, if we see the red coats, we'll fire on them." Throughout the year, this happened to get popular so the bureaucrats decided that they should probably actually say *why* they are fighting. You know, so dad doesn't think that you're just being fussy. After it was written (in 1776 - a year after hostilities broke out!), copies were circulated, but the original never left the capital. So there you go.
BTW, here's another factoid (really? "factoid" is in the Firefox spell check dictionary?) that I didn't pick up from history in elementary school. So, I thought that we had won the war with a little help from France and we were all happy. That's true to be sure, but there was so much more.
So, long story short... France started quietly funneling supplies to the Americans until the Americans won a few key victories. Then they said "It's a party - let's start whooping on England in the open." That also drew in Spain since they were in treaty with France at the time. And with that, other nations essentially had to bend over backwards to prove allegiance to Britain or they would be considered hostile. So, there was tension of a land war in Europe, as well as India and the West Indies. Obviously, England was a bit overstressed.
Oh... and there's more on the American continent as well. First off, there were about 15 % of colonists who were loyal to the crown. How about the native Americans? O they were divided, but some 13,000 of them fought with the British since they were afraid that their territories would be encroached upon, should America become independent. (Such a silly thought! We would never do that... o wait...) And so, there was also a western front to the war as well.
So, all in all, it wasn't so much the Americans and French beating back the biggest military power of the time. It was the biggest military power of the time collapsing under its own weight, being too over-extended around the world and having the rest of the world gang up on them since they were pricks.
And so thank you Nic. For making me look more into history. That and being a hell of a good butt to a joke.
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