This was pretty fascinating to an outsider. When I read the blog, it didn't make any sense and seemed to be missing some crucial background to make the pieces f

This was pretty fascinating to an outsider. When I read the blog, it didn't make any sense and seemed to be missing some crucial background to make the pieces fit. But it still got voted, by a big margin, to the top... It wasn't until I looked at the comments here that I understood what it was all about. I had no idea that this was such a big deal in the US, and that even techies are so engaged in the celebration (it's my impression that most techies don't tend to be overly flag waving in every day life). Over here in Sweden we don't have a similar holiday, which is probably connected to the fact that the veterans from our last war died well over a hundred years ago (not counting UN peace keeping operations). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Sweden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Sweden