4. A president died eating a Fourth of July dessert.
Zachary Taylor ate cherries and iced milk, then stomach pains set in, and he died days later. Still worth it.
5. Independence Day got its title and theme to screw another movie over.
They were just going to call it Doomsday and have no patriotism theme, but they advanced the release date and centered the film on July 4 to beat Mars Attacks.
6. Independence Day looks so good because they blew up real models.
7. One weird guy tried to set up an independent nation in one corner of Florida.
He declared himself Director-General of the Creek Nation. No Creek people asked for this.
8. America’s first World’s Fair was so popular, one-quarter of everyone in the country came by.
10 million people attended, and this was all the way in 1876.
9. More Revolutionary War people died on New York prison ships than in battle.
In fact, more than twice as many people died this way, as prisoners-of-war, than in combat.
10. A Civil War cannonball killed a guy (in 2008).
He used a drill to clean gunk off the ball, and a spark set the fuse alight and blew him up.