en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776

This caption conflates three separate steps in the Declaration’s history.

• The Continental Congress adopted the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, voting for independence.
• Congress then adopted the text of the Declaration on July 4, 1776.
• The formal parchment copy was signed by most members on August 2, 1776, not on July 2.

The National Archives timeline states: “July 2, 1776: Lee Resolution Adopted,” “July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence Adopted & Printed,” and “August 2, 1776: Declaration Signed.” A separate National Archives explainer likewise says Congress voted for independence on July 2 and “Two days later, it ratified the text of the Declaration.”

The statement assigns primary authorship to the wrong person.

Primary-source institutions state that Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in June 1776. Franklin was one of the five committee members and made edits, but he was not the document’s main drafter.

The National Archives says the Committee of Five appointed on June 11 included Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston, and that “Thomas Jefferson drafted it, Adams and Franklin made changes to it.” The Library of Congress likewise states that “Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence” and that it was later revised by Adams, Franklin, and the full committee.

This entry appears to mix up two different institutions.

The official history of the Mariinsky Opera says its history begins in 1783, when Catherine II created a theatre committee and the Bolshoi (Stone) Theatre on Theatre Square opened with Il mondo della luna. The Mariinsky site also states that the Mariinsky Theatre can trace its history to 1783, when the Bolshoi Stone Theatre opened.

By contrast, the 1776 foundation date belongs to Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. The Bank of Russia’s 250th-anniversary note says Catherine II granted Prince Pyotr Urusov theatrical privileges in Moscow on 28 March 1776, and that this date is considered the Bolshoi Theatre’s foundation.

So the statement is incorrect in placing a 1776 opening/first season for the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg.

This sentence skips an important intermediate step and is therefore inaccurate.

Kentucky County, Virginia, was created in 1776, but it did not continue intact until statehood. Official Kentucky state records show that in 1780 Kentucky County was split into Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fayette counties. Later political developments in the Kentucky district led to statehood on June 1, 1792.

The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives lists Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fayette as the three original counties founded in 1780 from “Kentucky (Virginia)”. A University Press of Kentucky history of statehood likewise says that “The division of sprawling Kentucky County into three counties in 1780” preceded the later movement that resulted in Kentucky becoming the fifteenth state in 1792.

So it is inaccurate to say that the county became the state in 1792, because the county had already been abolished and subdivided years earlier.

This statement mistakes a relocation/adjournment for the end of the institution.

Authoritative U.S. government histories say the Second Continental Congress continued until March 1, 1781, when the Articles of Confederation took effect. It did not end in December 1776.

The U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Historian says: “The Second Congress continued to meet until March 1, 1781.” The U.S. House of Representatives’ official history likewise says the body “met across seven sessions until adjourning March 1, 1781.”

So December 12, 1776 was not the end of the Second Continental Congress; it was only the end of one session in Philadelphia before Congress reconvened elsewhere.

This claim gets the strategic effect of Valcour Island wrong.

By the time of the Battle of Valcour Island on October 11, 1776, British forces had already opened the way to control New York City after the September 15, 1776 landing at Kip’s Bay. So the battle could not have bought time to prepare New York City’s defenses.

Sources describing the battle’s significance instead say Arnold’s defense of Lake Champlain delayed the British advance toward the Hudson River Valley and disrupted the British invasion from Canada. The American Battlefield Trust says the battle “delayed the British advance to the Hudson River Valley,” and the Army Historical Foundation explains that Arnold’s objective was to disrupt the British invasion from Canada and postpone it until the spring.

So the statement is inaccurate in naming New York City as the place whose defenses were prepared because of Valcour Island.