💬 Quoted: “It’s, to me, probably the most quintessentially American way I can think of to celebrate the 4th of July… You gotta see cars fly."

• Crabcakes and football may be how Maryland does it – but visit Glacier View, Alaska, and it’s cars and a cliff. For the past 20 years, thousands of Alaskans have gathered in the town on July 4th for the signature car launch, where empty vehicles are launched off a remote cliff and tumble down the steep hillside. The tradition reportedly started with a local Alaskan resident who grew tired of fixing his car following a moose collision, and decided to run it off a cliff instead. According to Alaska's News Source, this year's car launch event featured both its largest crowd in history and the most airborne automobiles yet, with a dozen vehicles taking a one-way trip down the rocky bluff.

🪐 Stat of the Day: Wanna know what it’s like to be trapped with coworkers you may or may not like for an extended period of time? Just ask the crew of volunteers who, on Saturday afternoon, re-emerged from NASA’s first-ever simulated Mars mission after spending the past 378 days confined together and completely isolated from the outside world. The four volunteers, who were initially locked inside a 3D-printed habitat on June 25 of last year, lived and worked inside the 17,000-square-foot facility as part of a mission intended to film footage for an Office remake set in space simulate the conditions on future trips to Mars. Among other things, the crew took part in a range of mock outdoor Mars missions, grew and harvested vegetables to supplement their shelf-stable food, and operated under additional stressors a Mars crew will experience (including communication delays with Earth, resource limitations, and isolation). NASA says it plans to carry out at least two additional simulated Mars missions this decade, as the agency prepares for its first manned trip to the red planet sometime in the late 2030s.

🤔 Did You Know? ‘Merica isn’t the only country to have successfully tossed out the occupying Brits. So far, 65 countries have claimed independence from Britain – meaning, on average, a country holds a celebration of its independence from Britain once every 5.6 days.

📰 Worth a Read: Why America’s Berries Have Never Tasted So Good → (WSJ)