What did we get for our country’s 250th birthday, a.k.a. the semi-quincentennial? An Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match on the White House lawn? A sparsely attended Great American State Fair? An underwhelming logo?

The last time we had an anniversary this massive, it was 1976 — the bicentennial — and the celebration was everywhere: in our movies, in our books, in our Saturday morning cartoons.

What happened this year? Wesley Morris is perplexed.

Jennifer Schuessler, a Times reporter who covers intellectual life and ideas, has talked to state planners and historians alike, and attended semi-quincentennial events across the country. Together, she and Wesley mull over the circumstances that led this year’s birthday bash to fall flat, and they celebrate the bicentennial gifts that keep on giving, 50 years later.

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