We were trying to come up with a good synchro for this very American holiday, but couldn’t find anything and figured we would just post a Happy 4th and a photo of exploding fireworks.Then we ran across a fascinating AP article about a mistake that Thomas Jefferson made on page 3 of the Declaration of Independence.
Apparently Jefferson, when referring to the American public, used the word subjects, had seconds thoughts and used his hand to rub out that word while the ink was still wet and substituted citizens.
“Fenalla France, a research chemist at the Library, said her lab made the discovery last year by using hyperspectral imaging, using a high resolution digital camera that compiles a series of images to highlight layers of a document,” said the article. “Some of those invisible layers — like erased text and even fingerprints — pop into view on a computer screen.” France called the discovery “spine-tingling.”
Spine-tingling it may be, but it has the trickster’s fingerprints all over it. It’s interesting, too, that this discovery was made during this BP oil fiasco. After all, wasn’t this document our declaration of independence from the British?
oh, i heard about this!!! SUBJECTS, yes, indeed, on the declaration of INDEPENDENCE!!
geeezzzeee!!!
We subjects did, indeed!
Well, I hope all you subjects,(ahem)citizens had a happy 4th July celebration.
Technology is getting so amazing. 🙂
DJan – never heard this word!
Happy 4th to both of you!
We've been subjects to Big Oil for a long time. Very interesting how this was revealed.
Happy Fourth!
Very interesting tidbit of information. Did you know that the practice of writing over and reusing documents is called palimpsest? That word was rolling around in my mind the other day and I had to look it up.