4 July 1776 is the day that the American colonialists declared their independence from Britain.
On 12 June 1898, the Philippines declared its independence from Spain. The declaration did not stop the major powers making the Treaty of Paris in December. The treaty marked the effective end of the Spanish Empire and the controversial beginning of the American one. By Article 3:
Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippines Islands…
The United States will pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars, within three months after the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty.
On 4 July 1946, the US acknowledged the independence of the Philippines, an “I shall return” taken to its ultimate if ambiguous conclusion.
In 1962, Philippine President Macapagal shifted the celebration to 12 June, to much popular acclaim. It is alleged that he later told an American journalist:
When I was in the diplomatic corps, I noticed that nobody came to our receptions on the Fourth of July, but went to the American Embassy instead. So, to compete, I decided we needed a different holiday.
I’m not sure about this. Macapagal spent the bulk of his diplomatic life in Washington DC, the one place on Earth where an American Embassy is definitively not found.
As for the US and land, the Louisiana Purchase, itself made atop a history of dealings between France and Spain, was made known to the American public on 4 July 1803.
Note the not wholly irrelevant story above…
the Battle of Trafalgar was two years off.