Today, the Fourth of July evokes images of parades, cookouts, waving flags, and brilliantly colored fireworks. Oh, the fireworks.

But how do our modern celebrations compare to the earliest Independence Day festivities?

Before the American Revolution, King George III’s June 4 birthday was a celebration marked with bonfires, speeches, and the ringing of bells. However, in 1776, as patriotic fervor swept through the colonies, birthday celebrations turned into mock funerals for the King.

So was the mood of the colonies on July 2, 1776, when the Continental Congress voted in favor of American independence. On July 4, after making several minor changes to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Congress officially adopted the document.

While many parades, bonfires, and the firing of muskets and cannons greeted the document’s public readings on July 8 of that year, the first organized July 4 celebration would take place in 1777 in Philadelphia and Boston.

According to the Pennsylvania Evening Post on July 5, 1777:

Yesterday the 4th of July, being the anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, was celebrated in this city with demonstrations of joy and festivity. About noon all the armed ships and gallies in the river were drawn up before the city, dressed in the gayest manner, with the colors of the United States and streamers displayed. At one o’clock, the yards being properly manned, they began the celebration of the day by a discharge of thirteen cannon from each of the ships, and one from each of the thirteen gallies, in honor of the Thirteen United States … The evening was closed with the ringing of bells, and at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated.

In Boston that same day, Col. Thomas Craft of the Sons of Liberty is said to have fired off fireworks and shells over Boston Common.