MYTH: Fireworks are an American pastime.
FACT: Fireworks were invented in China, but America was the first country to discover their use for teaching our drunk cousin a lesson about the best amount of fingers to have.
MYTH: The 4th of July is when the United States celebrates its independence from England.
FACT: The United Kingdom and North America have been separated by an entire ocean since the last ice age, but you never saw early humans putting Red Dye 40 in their baked goods over it.
MYTH: America’s founders left England in search of religious freedom.
FACT: They really just wanted to stop calling elevators “lifts.”
MYTH: The first American flag was sewn by Betsy Ross.
FACT: Betsy was trying to sew a Union Jack, but had accidentally eaten a loaf of fermented bread beforehand and was tripping her balls off when she cut out all those little stars for no reason.
MYTH: Currently, 5% of the American population believes that things are going really well.
FACT: When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, 5% of Americans disapproved of his manipulating, “God’s magic sky fire.”
MYTH: The month of July is named after Julius Caesar, a Roman dictator.
FACT: Contrary to popular belief, Caesar salads are not named after Julius Caesar, but after a man who had to be cut from his mother’s abdomen when he was born and then later got really into salad.
MYTH: The average citizen is ten times more likely to be injured by pyrotechnics than be shot in America.
FACT: Whoops, that’s an error. It’s the other way around.
MYTH: Fireworks are legal in 49 of the 52 American states and jurisdictions.
FACT: There’s a guy on Craigslist in every state who can score you some Roman candles and a pet hedgehog in exchange for your expired driver’s license.
MYTH: Bald eagles are large birds of prey native to North America.
FACT: America’s planners chose the bald eagle as its national bird because it was easier to get one of those little powdered wigs onto a bird without hair.
MYTH: America is called many things by many people across the globe.
FACT: Spanish-speaking countries call the U.S. “Los Estados Unidos,” while Canada uses the term, “Unfinished Basement.”
MYTH: America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the first Italian explorer to promote the theory that the land discovered by Christopher Columbus was part of a whole other continent.
FACT: That’s literally all that guy had to do to get America named after him forever.
MYTH: American flag code dictates that the flag never be worn, lowered to the ground, or used in advertising.
FACT: Ironically, the people who break flag code the least also happen to be the people who are less obnoxious about being Americans in general.
MYTH: The Confederate flag is not a symbol of racism, but of Southern heritage.
FACT: A big part of Southern heritage is racism.
MYTH: Most Americans are Christians.
FACT: Most Christians aren’t Christians.
MYTH: Benjamin Franklin was a President.
FACT: What even is a President anymore? What is a country? Who are pants?