The 240th Birthday sounds like Senior Citizen status, but in comparison to other great nations, our country is still in its diaper stage. When Rome was 240, it was still nearly 500 years away from the birth of Julius Caesar. The eastern half of Rome at Constantinople trudged on for another 1500 years after Caesar. In 1400 BCE Athens was in its colonial period. Paris has been gay since the third century BCE The Ottoman Empire started in the 1299 CE and gave up the ghost in the 19th Century.

I wish everyone celebrating this weekend a Happy 240th Birthday, but just remember we are still the new kid on the block.