When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?

Why this is the answer

The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and the official answer is that full date. The road to that day began two years earlier. In 1774 representatives from twelve of the thirteen colonies, all but Georgia, met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress. They were angry about British laws that treated them unfairly, and they began to organize an army. A Second Continental Congress gathered in 1775, after fighting between the colonists and the British army had started, and it asked Thomas Jefferson and others to write the Declaration of Independence. The finished Declaration argued that when a government fails to protect the rights of its people, the people may create a new one. Congress adopted it on the fourth of July. Independence Day marks the anniversary of that adoption, and Americans treat the Fourth of July as the country's birthday, with parades, fireworks, patriotic songs and public readings of the Declaration. The tempting wrong answers mix up the founding years. The Constitution was written in 1787, eleven years after the Declaration, and 39 of the delegates at the convention in Philadelphia signed it on September 17 of that year. If you catch yourself saying 1787 or September, you have switched documents. A quick check is to ask which came first, breaking away from Britain or setting up the new government. Breaking away came first, in 1776, and the holiday sits on that day. The option July 4, 1787 is a trap because it keeps the right day and changes only the year, so practice saying the year out loud with the date, not just "the Fourth of July." Anyone who has watched Independence Day fireworks already knows the month and the day. The year is the part worth drilling until it comes out on its own.