Good morning, and happy semiquincentennial. That’s the fancy term, from Latin, for America’s milestone 250th birthday tomorrow. It means “halfway to 500 years.” Neat.

Journalists across The Times have spent months exploring our history and culture through the lens of the anniversary. Today and through the weekend, instead of our regular Morning format, we’re bringing you special newsletters with highlights from that coverage. You can catch up on the latest news, of course, at nytimes.com. Sam will be back here on Monday. Enjoy!

The pursuit is the point

The inalienable rights laid out in our founding document are at once an observation and a challenge. You have life. You have liberty. Happiness? It’s up to you to chase it down.

We put out a call asking Americans how they define the Declaration of Independence’s “pursuit of happiness” in 2026. My colleagues and I combed through hundreds of responses and reported out some of their back stories. We also mined our notebooks and memories for other interesting people to profile. We broke things down into loose categories — wealth and success, contentment and spirituality, community, love and thrill.

Doug Garr, for example, finds happiness in the free fall — at 77, he is approaching his 2,500th skydiving jump. Hadley Vlahos, a 33-year-old hospice nurse, said happiness is about making the most of ordinary moments: serving a Tuesday dinner on fine china, screaming out a car window. For Malcolm Woods, a software engineer trying to make it as a standup comedian, fame — a streaming special, say — would spell happiness.

Thayer Wilson, who is 24 and just learned to sew, finds it by creating clothing for herself — and by connecting with her mother when she gets stuck on a project.

Darris Moore, who is serving a life sentence in Mississippi state prison for fatally shooting a man in 1997, appreciates that his job in the prison restaurant gives him access to better food. He also looks forward to playing Scrabble with his grandson during family visits. “I’m free in the heart and I’m free in the mind,” Moore said, “and that’s how I find happiness.”

One theme jumped out across geographic, demographic and philosophical lines: To be American, it seems, is to strive. Something better, something more fulfilling, could be within reach if you are willing to chase it.

“A lot of times, we focus on the results, on the outcomes,” noted Frank Bennett, a pastor in Georgia, “when we actually need to focus on the process.”

In other words, the pursuit is the point. You can read the full story here.

ON THE PLATE: 1780s

Who invented mac and cheese?

When Thomas Jefferson traveled to Paris in 1784, he brought along James Hemings, an enslaved man who worked at Monticello. Hemings studied French cuisine, and when they returned, he cooked for events hosted by Jefferson. One dish he served was macaroni pie: noodles boiled in milk, layered with cheese and baked in a Dutch oven. — Kim Severson

How F.D.R.’s most famous line remade America

The sentence, uttered before a crowd of 150,000 during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1933 inaugural address, may have been inspired by a department store ad. It did not make much of an initial splash — neither The Times nor The Washington Post quoted it in their front-page stories the next day. But, our chief White House correspondent Peter Baker writes, many historians see the statement now as “a touchstone for the United States at a pivotal moment in its journey from rebellious colonies to global superpower.” Here’s a bit more from Peter:

It marked a radical change from the framers’ vision. It ushered in a larger, more robust state than even an arch-federalist like Alexander Hamilton could have imagined. And it presaged a more assertive role around the globe in defiance of Washington’s admonition to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” But it was a model that could compete with, rather than emulate, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or Fascist Italy.

Click here to read Peter’s full essay, watch a grainy video of Roosevelt giving the famous speech, and explore five other sentences that shaped America’s story.

UNKNOWN FOUNDERS

‘Good Peter’

In the winter of 1765, an Oneida leader named Agwalongdongwas and his wife set out by snowshoe on a 275-mile journey from central New York to Connecticut. He was a pious Christian with a gift for oratory, according to Karim Tiro, a historian at Xavier University. Known to colonists as “Good Peter,” he carried a pass to ensure his safety. He eventually decided that the only way the Oneida people could have a future on their land was to cooperate with the colonists.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, Tiro writes, Peter urged Oneida warriors to assist the Patriots as scouts, spies and fighters, and they became the future Americans’ most critical Native ally. But Peter himself spent nearly five years in captivity amid competing claims by colonists and the British to Native lands. Read more about Good Peter and the other unknown founders.

One signs his emails “Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant.” Another frequently appears with his horse, Bear. A third has a personal library of 13,000 history books. They are 13 men who dress up as George Washington “interpreters” at historical parks and commemorations from Virginia to Washington. The portrait photographer Martin Schoeller created this stunning portfolio.

“I describe him sometimes as just a dude,” said Daniel Cross, 39, who portrays a young Washington at Colonial Williamsburg. “I look at him and think, I could see myself in the same world, making similar bad decisions or similar good decisions.”

Plus: Our publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, has an essay in The Dallas Morning News making the simple argument “Free people need a free press.”

TODAY’S NUMBER

900

— That is the weight, in pounds, of the time capsule cylinder that will be buried tomorrow at a park in Philadelphia. The capsule contains objects and records from 50 states and six territories, and will rest at least eight feet underground. It is slated to be retrieved in 2276.

CONTESTED LEGACIES

Madam C.J. Walker

The first child in her family born free after the Civil War, Madam C.J. Walker built a hair care empire amid the harshness of Jim Crow, helping many of the thousands of Black female independent sales agents become financially self-reliant. She was the country’s first female self-made millionaire, eventually memorialized on a postage stamp and as a Barbie doll. But Walker’s rags-to-riches story is more complex when viewed through the politics of Black hair. She was accused of promoting European beauty standards through the use of hot combs. — Audra D.S. Burch

Charleston, S.C.: Where the war was won

Carl Borick, director of the Charleston Museum and author of “A Gallant Defense,” took our writer Anna Venarchik on a tour of, as the state’s license plates put it, “where the Revolutionary War was won.” Here, a little sag by the sidewalk evidenced a British trench. “Nobody’s really paid much attention to this,” Borick said, “so that’s why this has survived.”

Anna visited Francis Marion National Forest, named for a general known as the Swamp Fox; traced the Battle of Black Mingo Creek via kayak; biked down Charleston’s Lowcountry peninsula into the former center of the British occupation; passed the home of the Declaration signer Thomas Heyward Jr.; bought a tin of “Colonial bohea” from a local shop that recreates historical teas; and visited a possibly 1,000-year-old tree that has seen it all.

Read the full story.

THE 250th QUIZ

This question comes from a recent article in The Times. Click an answer to see if you’re right.

Deep in the archives at Yale University is a quirky collection called Bicentennial Schlock. It contains more than 100 kitschy items that were created for the country’s 200th birthday celebration, in 1976. Which of the following is in the treasure trove?

GAMES