The Declaration of Independence is a 'statement' adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states and no longer a part of the British Empire.

According to the Welsh Society of Philadelphia, 16 of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were of Welsh descent:

George Clymer, Stephen Hopkins, Robert Morris, William Floyd, Francis Hopkinson, John Morton, Button Gwinnett, Thomas Jefferson, John Penn, George Read, John Hewes, Francis Lewis, James Smith, Williams Hooper, Lewis Morris, and William Williams.

This represents the largest ethnic group of signatories on the original document. Thomas Jeffersons' family originated from Snowdonia and were fluent Welsh speakers.

Born on this day 1790 in Crickhowell.

Colonel Sir George Everest  - The man that Mount Everest is named after.

In 1818, Sir George was commissioned  into the Royal Artillery. At that time known simply as Lt. Everest, he was appointed as assistant to Colonel William Lambton, who had inaugurated the Great Trigonometrical Survey of the sub-continent in 1806. When Lambton died in 1823,  Everest replaced him as superintendent of the survey and was responsible for its completion.  In recognition of this monumental achievement he was  appointed Surveyor General of India  in 1830, and in 1865, the Royal Geographical Society named Mount Everest  in his honour.

Today is the Feast day of Saint Peblig.

Peblig ( born c.363 ) or Publicus in Latin,  was the third son of Magnus Maximus ( Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388) and his second wife Saint Elen Luyddog (Helen of the Hosts). Lacking in political ambition, he relinquished his right of succession which enabled his brother Dionotus II to later become the Roman ruler of Britain. Instead, he entered the ministry, establishing the church of Llanbeblig just outside the town of Caernarfon. He served there as abbot until his death. He is said,  along with his mother and brother Cystennin, to have introduced into Wales the Celtic form of monasticism established originally in Gaul.

Llanbeblig Church (pictured) is associated with the "The Llanbeblig Book of Hours" which probably dates from the period 1390-1400 and contains the illustration of Magnus Maximus (pictured).

Books of Hours were very popular texts during the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Many thousand of these were created for religiously devoted lay people, who used them to enhance their programme of private  prayer and daily devotion to God.  The Books of Hours  were intended to echo the liturgy of the contemporary Church, in which  the day was divided into eight distinct  sections or 'hours'.  There were specific prayers  for each of these designated hours, with an elaborate calendar of feast days and religious celebrations. Many of the pages in these treasured volumes  were painstakingly and richly illuminated with colourful  images of Christ,  the Saints and the Virgin Mary.

Born this day 1872 in Plymouth Notch, Winsor County, Vermont (of Welsh descent)

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr . - 30th President of the United States ( pictured being made a Sioux Chief by Henry Standing Bear)

A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge made an increasingly positive impression in Massachusetts state politics; so successfully that he eventually became governor of that state.  He was elected as the 29th Vice President in 1920 and succeeded to the Presidency of the United States following the unexpected death in 1923 of Warren G. Harding.  He was elected in his own right in 1924, and went on to gain  a reputation as a small-government conservative, and also as a man of very few words.

Coolidge succeeded in  rebuilding public confidence in the White House following the scandals of his predecessor's administration and ended his term of office enjoying significant popularity.

On 4th July 1862, noted soprano Sarah Edith Wynne - Eos Cymru (The Nightingale of Wales) made her London début.

She was probably the first Welsh woman to become and internationally-renowned singer and her tours outside Wales and helped build the country's reputation as a "land of song". 

Wynne had showed a special talent as a singer when a child — she was only 9 when she joined the Holywell choral society.  When she was 12 she went on a concert tour to various parts of Wales and went to Liverpool at 14 to receive lessons in music, staying there five years.  Her first appearance in London as a soprano was in June 1862, where she then settled and was soon became one of the best vocalists in the country. She also had a successful American tour in 1871.

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