All of you non-American folks can go about your business... but for those of us in 'Merica:

Happy Birthday!

"Today is the great national holiday ... It is celebrated in every part of America, if not with suitable splendor at least with prodigious noise ... I have been kept awake since five o'clock this morning by the incessant noise of cannons and firecrackers. That is the American fashion of showing their satisfaction. To them, noise personifies joy." --Chevalier de Bacourt (1840)