250 Years: America’s Greatest Gifts

America turns 250 next year, and Rolling Stone is marking the occasion by celebrating some of the country’s biggest contributions to culture. To help build the list, they recruited well-known Americans from entertainment, music, sports, and media to spotlight what makes the country unique.

Some choices feel obvious. Others feel like somebody emptied out America’s junk drawer and said, “Yep, that’s us.”

The list includes:

• Snoopy
• Bodegas
• Game show hosts
• The Black Power movement
• The Chevy 454 pickup truck
• Guitar solos
• Folk music
• Amtrak
• Backyard hoops
• Everyday people
• Immigrant workers
• Drive-ins
• Late-night shows
• Proms
• The baseball diamond
• Street art
• The outlaw
• Protest songs
• Pro wrestling

Some of those choices carry major historical weight. Others feel wonderfully random.

You can understand baseball making the cut. Guitar solos? Fair. Drive-in theaters? Sure. But pro wrestling showing up alongside immigrant workers and protest songs is definitely odd, but 100% American.

Then again, maybe that’s the point.

America has always been loud, strange, creative, and impossible to neatly organize. It’s folk music and pickup trucks. Street art and late-night TV. Backyard basketball and giant championship belts.

Somewhere out there, two people are already arguing whether Amtrak deserved to make the list over barbecue.

And honestly, that’s probably America’s greatest achievement of all.

We can turn absolutely anything into a debate. Even a birthday party.

Here’s to another 250 years of this crazy country we love so much!

Doug O’Brien