"The history of our Revolution will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smote the Earth and out sprang General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and henceforth these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, legislatures and war."
- Ben Franklin in a letter about how Adams is (to paraphrase) a clueless, paranoid, anti-social, self-righteous loudmouth. Adams had issues.
The PBS Mechanical Universe series did a good job with it, given that they only had 25 minutes to work with.
Denmark has existed as a unified country since the 8th century AD [https://japan.um.dk/en/about-denmark/denmark/history]
San Marino since 301 AD [https://www.timetravelturtle.com/visiting-san-marino-oldest-...]
and many others.
Let's make revisionism fun: "Asterix in the USA" (1994 film): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_Conquers_America
Freedom and democracy for some people at the expense of others wasn't exactly a novel invention, you could look back to other slave societies like ancient Athens for it.
The 20th century fundamentally changed the structure and nature of the US, and has since just been war, empire and fleecing the poor, the middle class and soon the rich.
The post actually is a tale about how Ben Franklin invented the US, no?
The article is describing the conception and pregnancy of the US.
> The main thing to understand, before I go into detail, is that the Declaration of Independence is one of the founding documents, but it did not create a nation. Some of the colonists got together and wrote a historically eloquent letter to the world that basically said, “ayyyy England, F your king!”
Saying "F your king" is an integral part in being independent of England which is a prerequisite to being an independent nation. The Declaration of Independence established the United States as an independent nation. Any previous forms of the United States would have been a colony of England.
> The Continental Association is first time the colonies expressed a collective will to work together in the form of a legal document. It was published October 20, 1774 but went into effect December 1, 1774. The US does not observe December 1 as a national holiday, though it should. It is barely in the cultural memory at all.
The Continental Association is, essentially, where the colonies got together and discussed the idea of independence. The word "colonies" is a dead giveaway. After July 4th, there were no more colonies.
"The Union", referred to by Lincoln. Is not synonymous with the Nation.
The independent nation of the United States of America declared its sovereignty on July 4th, 1776. That's the "correct" way to think about July 4th, aka Independence Day.
They had crossed the chasm and the second adoption bump was starting to explode.
1776 is also the year Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations, and Thomas Paine published Common Sense.
Smart. Exploiting the fact that transatlantic communications took a couple of months at the time. Franklin would have had to use a different strategy today!
