I suppose the years that you boys and girls have thus far lived have been the most remarkable in the history of the world for celebrating anniversaries.
For fully twenty years the United States has been keeping its birthday.
The celebration commenced long before you were born, with the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Lexington (in 1875).

It has not ended yet.

But in 1892, We celebrated the greatest of all our birthdays--the discovery of the continent that made it possible for us to be here at all.
Now this has not always been so with us.

I suppose that in 1592 and in 1692 no notice whatever was taken of the twelfth day of October, on which--one hundred and two hundred years before--Columbus had landed on that flat little "key" known as Watling's Island down among the West Indies, and had begun a new chapter in the world's wonderful story.

In 1592, there was hardly anybody here to celebrate the anniversary--in fact, there was hardly anybody here at all, except a few Spanish settlers in the West Indies, in Mexico, and in Florida.