Thursday, June 12, at 6:30 p.m., the Belfast Free Library will host a Maine Humanities Council “Maine Speaks!” program with Liam Riordan, professor of History at the University of Maine for a talk titled, “Does Anything from the Year 1776 Matter Today?”

The program will take place in the Abbott Room with a Zoom option. Go to belfastlibrary.org/events to find the link to register for the Zoom.

The Declaration of Independence is a fixture of American culture and the reason that many of us try to spend time with family, picnic, and watch fireworks on the Fourth of July.

In this illustrated talk, Riordan looks at the text of the famous document (“all men are created equal . . . with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”) and considers some of its late-eighteenth century context. This will set the stage for a discussion about the meaning of the Declaration’s political ideals as well as its more sordid qualities for US public life today.

Liam Riordan is a history professor at the University of Maine who specializes in the American Revolution. He is the co-editor of What We Know, What We Wish: Maine Statehood, Historical Commemoration, and the Urgency of Public History, forthcoming from UMass Press in June 2025.