We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive!
Today…
And today, we look at the efforts to protect the Declaration of Independence and our other founding documents even in the face of an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse.
Which are kind of real things, which we know because New York Magazine reached out to the powers that be in 2013 to ask.
Back then, the movie World War Z showed zombies taking over Washington DC while soldiers took the original Declaration of Independence away from the National Archives building.
The feds didn’t outright say that there is a historical records preservation plan in case of zombies, but they did say that there are contingency plans for any major emergency, which would by definition include aliens, zombies, robots, mutants, wizards, trolls, dinosaurs or that evil weather balloon from the British show “The Prisoner.”
For starters, the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, known as the Charters of Freedom, are already under very heavy protection.
Their specially-designed vault is waterproof, fireproof and probably bombproof, and it goes underground each night to further protect it after hours.
But if all that still wasn’t enough, the government has plans to relocate these documents and other top-level historical and cultural artifacts to a safer place.
They obviously don’t say where that would be, but one possible candidate is a place that’s actually been used for this job before.
During World War II, the government took extraordinary measures to protect the holdings of the National Archives, including putting the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address on a special train from Washington to Fort Knox in Kentucky.
They were guarded there for the rest of the war by armed members of the Secret Service.
So zombies: you may get our brains, but you won’t get our Declaration of Independence.
Today in 1851, the start of an unusual 4th of July tradition: the Horribles Parade!
People mostly in New England wear outlandish costumes and put together satirical and not always safe for work floats spoofing the news and newsmakers.
Of course, you’re free to celebrate however you like today.
How the Government Would Protect the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence During a Zombie Apocalypse (New York Magazine)