During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July

2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain.[4][5] After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. A day later, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail: The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.[6] Adams's prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.[7] There is no question that July 4, 1776 is the date that the Congress approved the final official document, having voted to declare independence two days earlier.[8] Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had also signed it on that day. However, most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.[9][10][11][12][13] In a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but another Founding Father who became a President, James Monroe, died on July 4, 1831, thus becoming the third president in a row who died on this memorable day. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4, 1872, and, so far, is the only President to have been born on Independence Day.

The American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War (17751783), the American War of Independence,[8] or simply the Revolutionary War in America, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers, such as conflicts in India and West Africa between Great Britain and France. The war was the result of the political American Revolution. Colonists galvanized around the position that the Stamp Act of 1765, imposed by Parliament of Great Britain, was unconstitutional. The British Parliament insisted it had the right to tax colonists. The colonists claimed that, as they were British subjects, taxation without representation was illegal. The American colonists formed a unifying Continental Congress and a shadow government in each colony, though ostensibly claiming loyalty to the monarch and a place in the British Empire. The American boycott of directly taxed British tea led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773. London responded by ending self-government in Massachusetts and putting it under the control of the British army with General Thomas Gage as governor. In April 1775 Gage learned that weapons were being gathered in Concord, and he sent British troops to seize and destroy them.[9] Local militia confronted the troops and exchanged fire (see Battles of Lexington and Concord). After repeated pleas to the British monarchy for intervention with Parliament, any chance of a compromise ended when the Congress were declared traitors by royal decree, and they responded by declaring the independence of a new sovereign nation external to the British Empire, the United States of America, on July 4, 1776. American Loyalists rejected the Declaration, which received limited international recognition. Attempts to expand the rebellion into Quebec and the Floridas were unsuccessful. France, Spain and the Dutch Republic all secretly provided supplies, ammunition and weapons to the revolutionaries starting early in 1776. After early British success, the war became a standoff. The British used their naval superiority to capture and occupy American coastal cities while the rebels largely controlled the countryside, where 90 percent of the population lived. British strategy relied on mobilizing Loyalist militia, and was never fully realized. A British invasion from Canada ended in the capture of the British army at the Battles of Saratoga in 1777. That American victory persuaded France to enter the war openly in early 1778, balancing the two sides' military strength. Spain and the Dutch RepublicFrench alliesalso went to war with Britain over the next four years, threatening an invasion of Great Britain and severely testing British military strength with campaigns in Europe. Spain's involvement resulted in the expulsion of British armies from West Florida, securing the American southern flank. The decisive British naval victory at the Battle of the Saintes thwarted French and Spanish plans to drive Britain out of the Caribbean, and the joint Franco-Spanish attempt to capture the British stronghold of Gibraltar also resulted in similar defeat. French involvement proved decisive[10] yet expensive, ruining France's economy and driving the country into massive debt.[11] A French naval victory in the Chesapeake led to a siege by combined French and Continental armies that forced a second British army to surrender at the Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. Fighting continued throughout 1782, while peace negotiations began. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada

to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.[12][13] A wider international peace was agreed, in which several territories were exchanged.