RALEIGH — Over the next couple of years, you’ll hear a great deal about the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding. In July 2026, Americans will cheer the semiquincentennial — best add that word to your spelling list — of the Declaration of Independence. Even before that, however, we’ll witness other semiquincentennial celebrations: of the April 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord that ignited the Revolutionary War, of the June 1775 battle of Bunker Hill that forced the British to take the rebellion more seriously, and of battles of Moore’s Creek Bridge here in North Carolina (February 1776) and Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina (June 1776) that, together, frustrated Britain’s original scheme for subduing the southern colonies.