Some years don't just mark history — they make it.
The ornate treatment isn't decoration. When a number carries that much weight — the votes cast, the risks taken, the outcome that was never guaranteed — it deserves to be rendered like it means something permanent. The people who signed the Declaration weren't betting on a long shot for fun. They did it because the alternative was to keep living under something they'd already decided was wrong. That takes a different kind of courage than most centuries ever see.
