While the entire nation is preparing to celebrate their 235th birthday on Monday 4th July, and history is alive again with varied tales of early Independence Day celebrations, Marist poll conducted a poll on nearly thousands of Americans which reveals some shocking truth to us.
It may be very difficult to believe, but apparently many Americans don’t even are familiar with what the 4th of July is all about. The survey reveals that a lot of people are not aware of the historical background behind this Independence Day celebrations.
According to the results found by the survey only 58% of Americans know the United States declared its independence in 1776. Twenty-six percent were not sure about this and 16 percent said a wrong date.
The poll also uncovers that one fourth of Americans don’t know from which country the United States declared its independence. It shows that while 76 percent correctly answered Great Britain, 19 percent were unsure and five percent people said a different country name. Even Men are more likely than women to know the correct answer as 83% of men answered right which is comparatively high than the 68% of women who knows United States declared its independence from Great Britain.
In fact, the market research reveals that age is a vital factor when it comes to knowing the right answers about American history. That percentage does increase with older Americans with 59 percent between the ages of 30 and 44 and 75 percent between 45 and 59 knowing the answer that 1776 is when we declared independence.
The director of the Marist poll Lee Miringhoff said, “No one is scoring an A plus on these questions regardless of age, but when it comes to people under 30, clearly those numbers are pretty disturbing.”
Paul Giana, who is a teacher from New York City, describes the poll results as shocking. “It’s not a focus anymore,” he said. “It’s kind of our responsibility to have a stronger sense of history and I think we do a poor job of passing that on to the next generation.”
