After enduring draconian trade restrictions, tax levies,
and other intolerable acts imposed on the American
Colonies by Great Britain's King George III, the Second
Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration
of Independence on July 4, 1776, thus establishing the
United States as a nation independent of British rule.
The American Revolutionary War had already started in
April, 1775, when British troops fired on the colonists
who gathered to warn the American citizens that the
British were coming to seize John Hancock, John Adams,
and their munitions. The war ended in October of 1781,
six years later, when British General Cornwallis
surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown.
