July 4th is Independence Day.  We celebrate the day in 1776 when the members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence.  We would fight a war and it would be many years before the United States was recognized as a separate country by the rest of the world, but in 1776 we decided that's what we wanted for ourselves. It is that day of decision that is our nation's birthday.

When Europeans first came to America, most of the countries of Europe had state religions.  That meant that the government decided what religion everyone in the country should follow.  If you didn't believe in God the way the government and its church said you should, you might be punished and have to pay a fine, you might have trouble getting  a job, you could even be sent to jail!

Many people came to America because they wanted to worship God according to their beliefs and not the government's.  Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Episcopalians, and people of many other faiths lived together peacefully in America. When the Constitution was written in 1787, everyone wanted to be sure that the US government would never be able to pick a religion and decide everyone should follow it.   The First Amendment to the Constitution protects everyone's right to believe in God in their own way.