The American Revolution gave birth to a nation ...
... and helped define its people.
The Spirit of 1776
A Revolution that Shaped America
Two hundred and fifty years after their Declaration of Independence, Americans still cherish their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The spirit of 1776 is woven into the fabric of the nation.
John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence depicts the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress. (Architect of the Capitol)
John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence depicts the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress. (Architect of the Capitol)
Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence sent an enduring message to all the world’s peoples: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence (National Archives)
The Declaration of Independence (National Archives)
For Americans, these were more than just words. They described American life.
The Europeans who came to British North America sought to escape overcrowding, class restrictions, and religious persecution. And they came for opportunity. Even as the Native Americans lived there, the land was so vast and full of natural resources that a rugged, self-reliant colonist could make his own destiny.
Fall foliage on a trail near Linville Falls in North Carolina. (© Laurel Lunsford/National Park Service)
Fall foliage on a trail near Linville Falls in North Carolina. (© Laurel Lunsford/National Park Service)
Religious dissidents founded many of the 13 new British colonies: the Pilgrims and Puritans in Massachusetts, Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Catholics in Maryland. They risked starvation, survived disease, and learned to live together. As early as 1633, Lord Baltimore counseled Catholic colonists headed for Maryland to “suffer no scandal nor offence to be given to any of the Protestants … at Land as well as at Sea.”
Boston, as seen from Breed’s Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts. (© Samuel Hill/Library of Congress)
Boston, as seen from Breed’s Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts. (© Samuel Hill/Library of Congress)
The quest for religious freedom and new opportunities expanded America’s borders all the way to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Brigham Young led members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church, into Utah to escape religious persecution. Then the discovery of gold in California sent an estimated 300,000 people westward looking for quick riches.
A Pikes Peak, Colorado, prospector circa 1900. (© William Henry Jackson/Detroit Publishing Company/Library of Congress)
A Pikes Peak, Colorado, prospector circa 1900. (© William Henry Jackson/Detroit Publishing Company/Library of Congress)
Colonists participate in the Boston Tea Party (Library of Congress)
Colonists participate in the Boston Tea Party (Library of Congress)
December 16, 1773
Colonists, who had no representatives in the British parliament, disguised as Native Americans board British ships in the Boston harbor and throw 340 chests of tea overboard. It was their protest of a tax imposed without representation. Britain responds by putting Boston under military rule.
As the 13 colonies grew, an ocean away from their mother country, their residents became used to their freedom and guarded against any government infringement.
When Britain decided to increase its control — and its taxes — colonists felt excluded from decisions that affected their lives.
The stage was set for revolution.
Virginia legislators were already defying the colonial governor when they met in March 1775 at St. John’s Church in Richmond. Though tensions with Britain were high, Patrick Henry’s words stunned the delegates into silence.
Patrick Henry’s famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech (Library of Congress)
Patrick Henry’s famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech (Library of Congress)
“Give me liberty or give me death!” became the rallying cry as Virginia raised a militia to defend its freedom. The words echo through time, as each generation of Americans learns about the speech and gains its own appreciation of American freedoms.
The Statue of Liberty (© Kevin Daley/National Park Service)
The Statue of Liberty (© Kevin Daley/National Park Service)
In the Civil War, former slave Sergeant William Harvey Carney, determined to bring Patrick Henry’s liberty to enslaved people in the South, held the Stars and Stripes high over Charleston Harbor when the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Regiment attacked Fort Wagner.
Army Sergeant William Harvey Carney was the first African American Medal of Honor recipient, earning the recognition during the Union Army’s charge on Fort Wagner during the Civil War. (Army photo)
Army Sergeant William Harvey Carney was the first African American Medal of Honor recipient, earning the recognition during the Union Army’s charge on Fort Wagner during the Civil War. (Army photo)
Illustration of Paul Revere's "midnight ride" (© Interim Archives/Getty Images)
Illustration of Paul Revere's "midnight ride" (© Interim Archives/Getty Images)
April 18, 1775
Boston silversmith Paul Revere learns that British troops are marching to seize the colonists’ munitions at Concord. He and two other men make the famous “midnight ride” to wake and warn the colonists.
By April 1775, Massachusetts was in open defiance of British authority. Across the state, farmers and traders armed themselves into a militia known as the minutemen — ready to fight on a minute’s notice — and elected their own legislature to replace the one shut down by the royal governor.
The engagement at the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. (Courtesy Concord Museum, Concord, MA, www.concordmuseum.org)
The engagement at the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. (Courtesy Concord Museum, Concord, MA, www.concordmuseum.org)
When British soldiers marched to seize the colonists’ munition stockpiles, they found themselves facing off against the minutemen at 5 a.m. on April 19 on Lexington Green near Boston.
No one remembers who fired the first shot — the “shot heard ’round the world” — but the war was on. The British approached the colonists’ stockpiles, but the minutemen blocked their path at the Concord Bridge.
By June, the colonists would ultimately surround the city and drive the British forces out after the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Daniel Chester French’s The Minute Man statue commemorates the 1775 Battle of Concord in Massachusetts. (© Detroit Publishing Company/Library of Congress)
Daniel Chester French’s The Minute Man statue commemorates the 1775 Battle of Concord in Massachusetts. (© Detroit Publishing Company/Library of Congress)
The National Guard, the state-based reserve force for America’s military that was founded in 1903, features the minuteman on its emblem. The guard’s “citizen soldier” stands at the center of America’s defense forces: Reservists make up a third of the country’s 2 million service members.
A National Guard recruiting poster (© Edward Stern Company/Library of Congress)
A National Guard recruiting poster (© Edward Stern Company/Library of Congress)
January 10, 1776
British immigrant Thomas Paine publishes what becomes the manifesto of the Revolution. In Common Sense, Paine asserts that liberty is the natural human condition, and government exists to serve the people, rather than the other way around.
For going on 250 years, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has been the promise of the Revolution that began at Lexington and Concord and found its voice in the Declaration of Independence.
The events of 1775–1776 bind Americans into a nation that stands out as an embodiment of freedom for all.
Americans are still explorers and pioneers.
You see their spirit in the new immigrant who opens her own restaurant or the tech companies that partner with America’s space agency in the quest to reach Mars. According to the Treasury Department, the United States averages 430,000 new business applications per month.
Today, liberty binds Americans who have arrived from all parts of the world to help build this country. Freedom of expression and belief, and the rights of privacy, property ownership, and protection from arbitrary prosecution all maintain overwhelming support among Americans, says a recent poll by the Cato Institute.
The spirit of the minutemen, to stand up and protect one’s community, lives on as well. Across the nation, 65 percent of local firefighters are volunteers. In fact, half of all Americans do volunteer work, the Census Bureau reports, helping their communities even as they pursue their own happiness.
This year, Americans look back to the period just before their country was born on July 4, 1776. The road to America’s 250th anniversary offers guideposts that say a lot about just who Americans are.
Additional Photo and Video Credits:
(Library of Congress/E. Percy Moran), (Library of Congress/multiple), (© Interim Archives/Getty Images), (James Millar and John Lodge/The Society of the Cincinnati), (National Portrait Gallery/Gilbert Stuart), (Yale University), (The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Emanuel Leutze), (National Portrait Gallery/Edward Savage), (Library of Congress/Waterman Lilly Ormsby and John Trumbull), (© The Print Collector/Getty Images), (National Portrait Gallery/Laurent Dabos), (National Park Service/Victoria Stauffenberg), (Library of Congress/Matthew B. Brady), (Library of Congress/Oliver Lippincott), (Library of Congress/Lee Russell), (National Park Service), (© Octave Chanute/National Aeronautic Association), (Library of Congress/Detroit Publishing Company), (Library of Congress/Alfred T. Palmer), (The National Archives), (Library of Congress/Rowland Scherman), (NASA), (NASA/Neil Armstrong), (Storyblocks/multiple), (Getty Images), (National Park Service/Nate Toering)
Writer: Chuck Hoskinson
Photo editor: Evan Eile
Graphic designer: Buck Insley
Illustrator: Doug Thompson
Copy editor: Kathleen Hendrix
Digital storyteller: Pierce McManus
April 2025