THURSDAY JULY 2, 2026
SOUTH BOSTON ONLINE
VOLUME XIX- ISSUE 74
Independence Day 250, July 4, 2026
by Rick Winterson
I
n just 48 hours from now, we’ll be right in the middle of our nation’s 250th Birthday. You can begin by celebrating this evening. At 8:45 p.m., plan to view the fireworks in Boston Harbor, which will be easily visible from South Boston’s section of the Harborwalk. And this would be entirely fitting, because in 2026, it has been fifty (50) full years since America’s last m ajor I ndep endenc e Day celebration in 1976. Please spend a few minutes this coming weekend thinking that fact over – especially during this coming Saturday, on July 4 itself. Fifty years ago, Gerald Ford was the President of the USA. He served from 1974 until early in 1977, after Richard Nixon resigned from his own second Presidential term. In other words, back then America and our Constitution both came through a major politica l crisis, which the United States of America had ju st suc c e ssf u l ly ha nd led. And please consider how much has occurred since then. For example, we weathered the 9-11 tragedy in 2001 that involved pirated f lights from Boston’s Logan Airport, in part because of the heroic Americans aboard United Airlines Flight
93. After hearing of the other three 9-11 hijackings, they bravely attacked the hijackers in Flight 93 and prevented further destruction from occurring. In 2008-09, America experienced what’s now called “The Great Recession”, and we got through
that quite successfully. Our economy worked its way out of an unexpected crisis. More recently, U.S. know-how led to a successful vaccine for C OV I D -19, a worldw ide plague. Remarkably, American technolog y de veloped t his
vaccine in less than six months. These happenings strongly indicate just how much we have to be thankful for and should celebrate on July 4, 2026. A fter many challenges over the last 50 years, America still Continued on Page 2