July 27th Through Time: Votes for Freedom, Birthdays & Bold Firsts

On July twenty-seventh, nineteen twenty-six, the Philippine House of Representatives voted to hold a plebiscite on independence from the United States. Just think about that. A colony, voting to ask its own people if they want to be free. Yesterday we were talking about Benjamin Franklin getting his first salary as Postmaster General, building the infrastructure of a new nation. Well, today we are looking at another nation, thousands of miles away and more than a century later, trying to do the very same thing—trying to find its own way, on its own terms. And that vote, on this day, was a breathtaking act of defiance. It was a declaration that the future was not something to be received from an empire, but something to be BUILT by its own people.

And that theme of independence, of self-determination, it just echoes all over this date. July twenty-seventh is also National Disability Independence Day. It's a day that celebrates the rights and the autonomy of people with disabilities, a recognition that independence isn't just about nations and borders, but about individual lives and the right to live them fully. It’s marked by community events, art in the park, local council meetings... It’s a living, breathing celebration of progress. But let's jump way, way back. To fourteen fifty-two. On this day, a man named Ludovico Sforza was born in Italy. And you might be thinking, okay, an Italian nobleman, so what?

Oh, but this is the guy... this is the patron who commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint The Last Supper. WOW. One of the most famous works of art in human history exists because of a man born on this day. It’s a reminder that sometimes history turns not on a battle, but on a check being written. On one person seeing genius in another and saying, "Here. Make something the world has never seen before." And speaking of creating new worlds... let's leap forward to nineteen thirty-eight. Gary Gygax is born. The co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons! I mean, come on. From the patron of The Last Supper to the creator of the Beholder and the Mind Flayer, all on the same calendar day.

Gygax didn't just create a game; he created a new language for imagination. He gave millions of people a framework for collaborative storytelling, a way to build worlds together in their basements and living rooms with nothing but paper, pencils, and some strangely-shaped dice. The line from Sforza to Gygax is the line of patronage and creation, of enabling new realities to come into being. And just to keep us grounded in the present, professional golfer Jordan Spieth was born on this day in nineteen ninety-three. A reminder that history is still being made, records are still being broken, and the story of this date is still being written. Okay, but I want to go back.

Let's go back to Manila, nineteen twenty-six. Because that vote for independence... it wasn't the end of the story. It was the beginning of a fight. You have to picture the atmosphere. The Philippines had been a U.S. colony since the Spanish-American War in eighteen ninety-eight. For decades, a powerful independence movement had been simmering, arguing, organizing. So when the House of Representatives passes this bill to hold a plebiscite—to let the people themselves vote on the question of sovereignty—it must have felt like a monumental victory. A moment where the tide was finally turning. But of course, the American colonial governor wasn't having it. He vetoed the bill.

And just to make sure, President Calvin Coolidge, sitting all the way back in Washington D.C., ALSO vetoed it. The message was clear: you can talk about independence, you can even vote on it amongst yourselves, but WE hold the power here. And to really understand the mindset, you have to look at this "fact-finding" mission that was happening at the exact same time. The U.S. sent over a politician, a Colonel Carmi Thompson, to assess the situation. And his report... his report is just a masterclass in colonial paternalism. He travels around, sees these huge demonstrations for independence, and dismisses them as "staged productions." He wrote, and this is a quote, that the "natives" did not seem to realize that severing ties with America would mean losing "military protection" and would result in "ruinous tariffs." You can just feel the condescension dripping from the page.

The absolute certainty that he, the outsider, knew what was best for an entire nation of people. He saw their desire for freedom not as a legitimate political aspiration, but as a kind of childish fantasy. He believed they couldn't POSSIBLY understand the economic realities, that they needed to be protected from their own foolish desires. And this is what makes looking back so powerful. From our vantage point, we see it so clearly. We see a nation demanding its right to exist. But from inside that moment, from Carmi Thompson's perspective, he saw himself as the responsible adult in the room. He saw the Filipinos as children who needed guidance. The clash wasn't just about policy; it was about dignity.

It was about who gets to be the author of a nation's story. The plebiscite never happened. The vetoes stood. Philippine independence wouldn't come for another twenty years, after the devastation of World War Two. But that vote on July twenty-seventh, nineteen twenty-six... it wasn't a failure. It was a promise. It was a moment where a people looked their colonizer in the eye and said, "We are a nation. And one day, you will have to see it too." It drew a line in the sand. And looking back, we can see that line stretching all the way to the future they eventually claimed. So what does this day, July twenty-seventh, actually show us? It shows us that the demand for independence is one of the most powerful forces in history.

And it takes so many different forms. It's the political demand of a colonized nation saying "we will govern ourselves." It's the social demand of the disability rights movement saying "we will live our own lives, with dignity and access." It's even there in the creative act. It's in Ludovico Sforza giving Leonardo the freedom to create a masterpiece, and it's in Gary Gygax giving millions of players the freedom to create their own worlds. Each of these stories, from different centuries and different contexts, is about pushing back against a pre-defined reality. It’s about rejecting the idea that your life, your art, or your country has to be what someone else says it is.

It's the refusal to be a supporting character in someone else's story. History isn't a static collection of birthdays and anniversaries. It's a dynamic, often difficult, conversation. And on July twenty-seventh, the conversation is overwhelmingly about one thing: the fundamental human need to be the author of your own story. The past isn't what happened to people. It's what people decided would happen next.