Heritage Foundation crafts map of historical sites for 250th anniversary with grades for accuracy

The Heritage Foundation released an interactive map of American historical sites, aiming to give visitors an idea of what to expect from each site as people are expected to travel across the country for the United States’ 250th birthday next year.

“Traveling to battlefields, presidential homes, and museums is a tradition we keep with family members, friends, and fellow citizens,” foundation spokesperson Brenda Hafera said. “Now, families can go to the places where history really happened, equipped with additional resources that enrich the experience and provide confidence and accountability.”

The map is still fairly new and the majority of the sites are yet to be graded. It uses a letter system for every historical site listed.

The map gives A grades to historical sites with in-depth tours and complete historical pictures, B grades to sites with slight oversights but still contain the heart of the story and C grades to sites that, according to the foundation’s website “demonstrate a pervasive neglect of comprehensiveness, accuracy, and proportionality, or even actively distort the subject matter of the site itself or the American story.”

The foundation aims to evaluate all the sites in the original 13 colonies before moving on to the other 37 states and Washington, D.C. The Heritage Foundation does not have a complete timeline for when the entire guide will be finished, but wants to grade all the listed sites ahead of next summer.