On 4 July 2026, tens of millions of Americans across the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s Declaration of Independence. Largely written by Thomas Jefferson, this extraordinary foundational document formally announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain – a revolutionary call to arms eloquently justified by its argument that ‘these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States’, and by its claim that King George III was ‘unfit to be the ruler of a free people’.
As we discover in our special feature for this issue, the Declaration’s publication was actually just one in a complicated sequence of world-changing events that resulted in America’s eventual independence. A conflict which had begun several years earlier as an argument between two groups of British subjects over trade and taxes exploded into open warfare in April 1775, when the first shots were exchanged during a brief skirmish between British infantrymen and a small group of American militiamen who had assembled on the green in the centre of the town of Lexington, outside Boston.
As matters escalated, the rebel forces would find an inspirational new leader in George Washington – the man who would become the country’s first President – and new allies in the form of Britain’s traditional rivals France and Spain, while six years of armed struggle would see a cat-and-mouse war waged up and down the continent’s eastern seaboard. By the time of the final British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781, thousands on both sides had been killed – but America had won its freedom at last from colonial rule, and a new superpower had been born.
In our latest four-part series, Fred Chiaventone examines the genesis of America’s Revolutionary War, and traces the history of a conflict whose repercussions are still being felt 250 years on.
This is an extract from a special feature marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, from the December 2025/ January 2026 issue of Military History Matters magazine.
Read the full article online on The Past, or in the print magazine: find out more about subscriptions to Military History Matters here.