Unless you feel like depressing yourself, or indulging in a rueful chuckle over others’ incompetence, we don’t recommend you scroll your way over the America250 feed on Instagram. The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission has branded itself with that name, and in the exciting run-up to our nation’s epic birthday, the 250th committee mainly seems to be busying itself polling an apathetic public on pressing questions such as, “Which is more American: buffalo wings or barbecue ribs?”
The Most American Food Ever, according to the America250 Instagram poll, as depicted by a creepily artificial photo of a wiener with a tiny flag poking up from the relish, is the hot dog. “Why is it A.I.?” complained one of the few underwhelmed Americans who bothered to participate. “Couldn’t someone just take a photo of a hot dog? Or ask for submissions? It makes it look like America is lazy.”
Those old enough to remember how big a deal the Bicentennial was in the summer of 1976 may be feeling a bit misty, 50 years on, as we consider how dangerously wrong our American experiment in democracy has gone. Are we having fun yet?
Nevertheless, looking ahead toward the summer of 2026, there are some more substantial and actually fascinating semiquincentennial events on the horizon.
We’re genuinely gung-ho to see the massive tall ship flotilla that will be coming to New York Harbor. Surpassing the tall ships gathering of 1976, some 60 vessels will — weather willing and barring war with NATO — convene for a Parade of Sail on July 4, with many berthing along the waterfront for boarding by the public on July 5 to 8. (We’re hoping the Danmark, owned by the Danish Maritime Authority, makes it.) Book your hotel room now.
On Feb. 19, the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook will debut an exhibition titled “The Seat of Action: Long Island in the American Revolution and Beyond,” which tells the tale of the long years of occupation our region endured between the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and the liberation of New York in November 1783. That show runs through September. In a similar vein, the Tom Twomey Lecture Series at the East Hampton Library will feature Leah K. Lebec giving a talk on “East Hampton During the American Revolution” on April 24 at 7 p.m., which will illuminate our local history beyond the oft-repeated anecdote about the hot pudding pitched at Red Coats on Pudding Hill. And the East Hampton Historical Society has debuted an interesting podcast in a similar vein — “Spirit of ’76: East Hampton in the American Revolution” — researched and narrated by a high school student.
We are eager to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan for its “Art of Revolution” series. It begins in March and ends in August and features special screenings of never-before-seen excerpts from Ken Burns’s “The American Revolution” and a world premiere of David Lang’s “The National Anthems,” a choral piece derived from the common themes found in anthems from 193 different countries. The Met’s exhibition “Revolution!” opened this week in the American Wing. It’s a must-see for, among other highlights, print depictions of participants in the Revolution, from Paul Revere to the Wampanoag chief Metacomet and the Black poet Phillis Wheatley, who, in the words of the museum, “raised her voice against an expansive tyranny in her own struggle for emancipation.”
We anticipate the month of July to be not just about fireworks but a time of contemplation.