The Declaration of Independence

Date

4 July 1776

Category

Politics & governance

Region

United States (Philadelphia)

Era

Early Modern

Significance

On 4 July 1776 the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the Declaration of Independence, severing the political bonds between the thirteen colonies and Great Britain.

Drafted principally by Thomas Jefferson and revised by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and the Congress, the document justified separation by appealing to natural rights—"that all men are created equal" and endowed with "unalienable Rights"—and to a right of revolution against a government that violated them, supported by a list of twenty-seven grievances against King George III. The Declaration transformed a colonial rebellion into the founding act of a new nation and provided a philosophical charter that resonated far beyond America. Its language of natural rights and popular sovereignty influenced the French Revolution, later Latin American independence movements, and abolitionist and democratic causes worldwide. Independence also enabled the formal alliance with France that proved decisive to the war's outcome.

Empires active in 4 July 1776

• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE – 1857 CE

Related politics & governance events

• The United States Constitution drafted and ratified
  17 September 1787
• The storming of the Bastille and the outbreak of the French Revolution
  14 July 1789
• Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War
  October 1648
• The Stamp Act and the crisis of "no taxation without representation"
  March 1765
• Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments and penal reform
  1764
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
  26 August 1789

Further reading

1776

If you read one book

1776

David McCullough

Bestselling narrative of America's founding year.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence — Pauline MaierAmazon →

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