Bald Eagle Essay

We as Americans should mostly know what makes America what it is, the cookouts, the hot dogs, burgers, terrible presidential candidates, guns, large military, and most importantly, freedom. Other countries have these things too, but when you hear some of those terms, you would usually think of America. If it had not been for our founding fathers, we likely wouldn’t have any of these things, as they are the ones who granted us pure American freedom. But what is it that symbolizes America as a whole, might we ask? That is easily narrowed down to one simple answer, the bald eagle. Supposedly, the bald eagle was chosen as a symbol of America simply because it symbolizes strength, courage, and freedom of course. They had felt that this animal represented those traits and …show more content…
The origins of eagles even date back to Greek mythology, where Zeus had one named Aetos Dios. Then, once the official signing of the Declaration of Independence came along, and the design for the national seal had to be chosen, there was a lot of controversy between a committee appointed by the Congress, men including Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Franklin, for one, highly endorsed the turkey as the design, as he heavily pitied the eagle to be it, calling it a coward and morally inadequate. This soon came down to a six year long debate on what the design would be, and after a third committee took action, they came up with a design identical to a golden eagle, but was later changed to the bald eagle because the golden eagle was found in Europe as well. Today however, people in America are encircled by a numerous amount of bald eagles, whether it be the living bird, or an image of one. Commonly found on statues, buildings, company logos, U.S. currency, churches, art, music, literature, and generally the culture of the United