"The fact that it rained just about everywhere on July 4, 1826, didn't put a damper on the day's celebrations," Burstein says. "This was the rising generation who were paying homage to their parents, to the founding generation."
The revelers didn't know, however, that Adams and Jefferson died within hours of each other on July Fourth.
Adams, whose health had been failing, died at age 90 on his farm in Massachusetts. His apocryphal last words, referencing his lifelong friend and rival, were "Thomas Jefferson survives." In fact, Burstein says, the end of Adams' sentence was garbled and lost to history — and he didn't know that Jefferson, 83, had died earlier that day in Virginia.
As the news trickled across the country in the days that followed, Burstein says, Americans saw the dual deaths not as pure coincidence but a "larger-than-life phenomenon."
"It was regarded not only as a mathematical improbability, but as a sign of providence that God had, in a way, symbolically blessed the United States by taking on a journey to heaven two of the three surviving signers of the Declaration," he adds.
Burstein says it also had the effect of bringing all of the states — 24 at the time — together in a simultaneous mix of mourning and glory.
The 50th anniversary was otherwise a localized affair. There was no White House-led commemoration, though President John Quincy Adams attended events in D.C. (he didn't find out about his father's death until days later).
And, despite its relative proximity to the contentious election of 1824 — which was decided by the House of Representatives after no candidate won a majority — Burstein says the jubilee was "one of the few moments when partisanship did not dominate the political conversation."
"There was a celebration of both the inner strength and outward courage of the surviving veterans and those who had been lost. And accompanying that, a sense of the stability of the American republic," he says. "So it's one of those rare, truly optimistic moments in American history."
1876: An unprecedented World's Fair puts America on the map
America celebrated its 100th birthday by hosting its first-ever world's fair, a massive international exhibition designed to showcase the country's best in science, technology, culture and industry.
A college professor in Indiana is credited with suggesting that Philadelphia — where the Declaration of Independence was signed — host what would become known as the 1876 Centennial Exposition.
The idea of marking the 100th anniversary caught on immediately, according to Bordewich, who wrote a book about the fair.
"And pretty quickly, all companies, industries, political figures signed on to the idea of a great celebration … which would, on one hand, celebrate the achievements of the nation in its first 100 years, but also look back towards the founding," he says.