It is, of course, the Fourth day of July.
After several years of tension, and many attempts by various colony-side groups to get the British parliament to listen to basic grievances, conflict arose.
The Colonists and the British Army started shooting on 19 April 1775 at Lexington - just outside of Boston. On 11 June 1776, more than a year after the war had begun, the delegates to the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five, and they got started on the serious work of making a formal declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson did most of the writing, and the decision to ratify a Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. Over the next two days, wording of the draft document was debated, and the final wording was approved after minor changes on 4 July 1776.
The war continued trough 1783. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 3 September 1783, and the last of the British troops left New York City on 25 November 1783.
George Washington left the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in December 1783, and did not become President of the United States of America until 30 April 1789, 14 years after the revolutionary war started, 13 years after the ratification of the Declaration of Independence, and 5 years after the British left.
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