50 Fun Facts About 1776

Which New York landmark bears the date July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals on a tablet?

The Statue of Liberty carries the date as JULY IV MDCCLXXVI on the tablet in her left hand. Sculptor Bartholdi admired the Constitution, but chose the date of the Declaration of Independence instead.

Which 33-year-old Virginian wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in rented rooms in June 1776?

Thomas Jefferson drafted it between June 11 and June 28 on the second floor of a rented house in Philadelphia. Congress then cut nearly a fourth of his text.

Which secret society, a staple of conspiracy theories, did a Bavarian professor found on May 1, 1776?

The Illuminati began as the Perfectibilists, with the Owl of Minerva as their symbol. Bavaria's ruler outlawed the order by edict in 1784, less than a decade after it was formed.

Whose large, stylish signature on the Declaration of Independence turned his name into American slang for an autograph?

John Hancock signed as president of Congress when the document was adopted. He sent a printed copy to General Washington with instructions to have it read to the troops.

Which town did Washington's army storm the morning after crossing the icy Delaware River on Christmas night 1776?

Trenton was held by about 1,400 German soldiers, and almost two-thirds of them were captured. The win lifted the army's sinking morale and inspired men to re-enlist.

Which California city grew from a Spanish presidio and mission founded in 1776, the year of American independence?

San Francisco's presidio was established on September 17, 1776, and its mission chapel was dedicated that October. The adobe church at Mission Dolores, finished in 1791, is the oldest intact structure in the city.

Which anonymous pamphlet, printed in Philadelphia in January 1776, became a sensation by urging a break with Britain?

Common Sense was read aloud in taverns and meeting places across the colonies. Its author had arrived from England little more than a year before it appeared.

Which New York skyscraper was designed to stand exactly 1,776 feet tall, honoring the year of American independence?

One World Trade Center reached its symbolic height in May 2013, when the final piece of its spire was lifted into place. Its roof sits at 1,368 feet, matching the original North Tower.

Which unalienable right does the Declaration of Independence list third, where John Locke's trio ended with estate?

The pursuit of happiness closes the best-known sentence in the document. Locke, writing in 1689, had argued that political society exists to protect a person's property.

Which 21-year-old Connecticut officer did the British hang as a spy in New York in September 1776?

Nathan Hale had planned to pose as a Dutch schoolteacher looking for work, yet reportedly carried a Yale diploma bearing his real name. Connecticut made him its official state hero in 1985.

On which date in 1776 did Congress actually vote for independence, before approving the Declaration's final wording?

July 2 was the day twelve colonies approved the resolution of independence while New York abstained. One delegate wrote home that this date would be celebrated by generations to come.

Which name, taken from a German state, did Americans give the 30,000 soldiers Britain hired to fight the Revolution?

Hessians made up about a quarter of Britain's land forces in the war. Their own rulers hired them out as whole units, so they fought under their own flags and officers.

Which besieged city did British troops abandon in March 1776 after American cannon appeared on Dorchester Heights?

Boston still marks the British departure every March 17 as Evacuation Day. The local holiday happens to fall on Saint Patrick's Day, a coincidence that helped it become official.

From which captured stronghold did Henry Knox haul 60 tons of cannon some 300 miles to Washington's army in early 1776?

Fort Ticonderoga's guns travelled by boat, horse and ox-drawn sledge across half-frozen rivers and the Berkshire hills. One historian called the trek among the most stupendous feats of logistics of the war.

In which present-day New York City borough was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War fought in August 1776?

Brooklyn saw Washington's army beaten and then saved. Two nights after the defeat he ferried every soldier across to Manhattan without losing a single life.

Which animal gave its name to David Bushnell's one-man submarine, which tried to sink a British flagship in 1776?

Turtle was the first submarine with a documented record of use in combat. Every attempt to fix explosives to British warships in New York Harbor failed, and the British sank the ship carrying it later that year.

Which former English corset maker wrote The American Crisis, published a week before Washington crossed the Delaware?

Thomas Paine had been a master staymaker in Kent before sailing for America in 1774. His essay lifted the army's morale by urging soldiers to believe that victory was still possible.

Which Founding Father's son, the last royal governor of his colony, was jailed in 1776 for staying loyal to Britain?

Benjamin Franklin's son William spent two years locked up in Connecticut, then emerged as the chief figure among the Loyalists. He died in London in 1813.

Who urged her husband, a Massachusetts delegate to Congress, to remember the ladies in a March 1776 letter?

Abigail Adams warned that women would stir up a rebellion of their own if the new laws gave them no voice. Her husband John, a future president, declined the idea.

Which soft metal lay under the gilding of the King George III monument that New Yorkers toppled in July 1776?

Lead made the two-ton monument a useful prize: it is said to have been shipped to Connecticut and cast into 42,088 bullets. It fell on the day the Declaration was read to Washington's troops.

Which landmark economics book did Scotsman Adam Smith publish in March 1776, four months before American independence?

The Wealth of Nations uses Smith's famous image of an invisible hand only once. Five editions were published during his lifetime.

Which English historian published the first volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in February 1776?

Edward Gibbon needed six volumes to finish the work, the last three appearing together in 1788. He followed the story from the height of imperial power all the way to the fall of Byzantium.

Which British explorer left Plymouth in July 1776 to seek the Northwest Passage, on the voyage that cost him his life?

James Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii in February 1779. The stated purpose of the trip, taking a Pacific islander named Omai home, was a cover for the Admiralty's real plan.

Which Scottish instrument maker's steam engine, burning far less coal than earlier designs, first went on sale in 1776?

James Watt was repairing a model engine at the University of Glasgow when he noticed how wasteful it was. His fix was a separate condenser, so the main cylinder could stay hot.

Which academic honor society did five students found at the College of William & Mary in December 1776?

Phi Beta Kappa set the pattern of naming American college societies after the initials of a secret Greek motto. Its founders were students who gathered at Williamsburg's Raleigh Tavern.

Which Italian scientist, born in Turin in August 1776, gave his name to the number of particles in a mole?

Amedeo Avogadro took a degree in church law and practised as a lawyer before he turned to science. The constant named in his honour is roughly 6.022 × 10²³ per mole.

Where on the back of the US one-dollar bill does the year 1776 appear in Roman numerals as MDCCLXXVI?

On the pyramid's base sits the date fixed for the reverse of the Great Seal, a side that has never been cut as a working seal. Both faces of the Seal have been printed on the dollar since 1935.

John Trumbull's painting of the draft Declaration being presented to Congress appears on the back of which US banknote?

The $2 bill shows a scene often taken for the signing. Trumbull in fact painted the five-man drafting committee handing in its work on June 28, 1776, and the canvas hangs in the Capitol rotunda.

Which Philadelphia upholsterer, in a story her grandson first told in 1870, sewed the first American flag in 1776?

Betsy Ross is said to have talked Washington into five-pointed stars because they were quicker to cut. No archival evidence supports the tale, which surfaced a century after the fact.

Which King's College student raised and captained a New York artillery company in 1776, then became Washington's aide?

Alexander Hamilton recruited the 60 men himself and covered the army's rear during its retreat up Manhattan. The company's descendant is counted as the oldest active unit in the Regular Army.

Which actor, later Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World, starred in the musical 1776 on Broadway and again on screen?

William Daniels has played three members of one famous political family on screen: a president, that president's son and his cousin. He also voiced the talking car KITT in Knight Rider.

Which counterculture rock musical lost the 1969 Tony Award for Best Musical to 1776, a show about Congress?

Hair lost to 1776 for both Best Musical and Best Director that night. A year earlier it had been ruled ineligible for the Tonys altogether when the cutoff date was moved.

Which US president, by the producer's account, asked for a song to be cut from the screen version of the musical 1776?

Richard Nixon apparently took the number, sung by the conservatives in Congress, as an insult. Producer Jack L. Warner, a friend of his, had it removed while the director was away on vacation.

Which historian, a two-time Pulitzer winner for presidential biographies, wrote the 2005 bestseller titled simply 1776?

David McCullough wrote it as a companion to his earlier biography of the second president. He was also a familiar voice, narrating Ken Burns's documentary The Civil War.

What did Philadelphians call Independence Hall in 1776, when the Second Continental Congress was meeting inside it?

The State House, finished in 1753 for Pennsylvania's colonial government, took the name Hall of Independence in 1824, when it hosted the Marquis de Lafayette.

In which Washington, D.C. building has the signed Declaration of Independence been on permanent display since 1952?

The National Archives keeps it in a hall named the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom. After Pearl Harbor the document spent nearly three years hidden far from the capital for safekeeping.

Which practice did a deleted passage of the draft Declaration of Independence blame King George III for imposing?

Slavery was pinned on the king in a paragraph that delegates struck out to appease South Carolina and Georgia. The draft had called the traffic in human beings a cruel war against human nature.

Congress ordered the Declaration of Independence engrossed on which writing material before the delegates signed it?

Parchment was named in the order Congress passed on July 19, 1776, which also added the word unanimous to the title. Engrossing meant copying the text out in a large, clear hand.

The spongy logs of which tree, now on South Carolina's flag, soaked up British cannon fire at Sullivan's Island in 1776?

Palmetto logs and sandy soil let Colonel William Moultrie's partly built fort shrug off a day-long naval bombardment. The British fleet withdrew and did not return to the state until 1780.

Which American general lost most of his fleet on Lake Champlain in October 1776, yet stalled a British invasion?

Benedict Arnold saw most of his ships captured or destroyed at Valcour Island, but the fight stalled British plans to reach the Hudson valley. Four years later he defected to the enemy.

Which Virginian moved the June 1776 resolution for independence, then left before Congress adopted the Declaration?

Richard Henry Lee had gone home by the time of the vote and signed the Declaration only after he returned. He later served a one-year term as president of the Continental Congress.

Which Virginian was the main author of the June 1776 Declaration of Rights that shaped the later Bill of Rights?

George Mason went on to be one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution in 1787. His declaration had been adopted unanimously by a convention at Williamsburg.

Which Delaware delegate rode overnight through a thunderstorm to break his colony's deadlock over independence?

Caesar Rodney reached Philadelphia in his boots and spurs just as the voting began. Delaware put the ride on its state quarter in 1999.

Which colony was first to renounce allegiance to the British Crown, on May 4, 1776, two months before the Declaration?

Rhode Island moved first on independence but last on the Constitution. It boycotted the 1787 convention and was the last of the original thirteen states to ratify, in May 1790.

Which Georgia signer of the Declaration, killed in a duel in 1777, left an autograph that collectors prize as rare?

Button Gwinnett was fairly obscure before he signed and died soon afterward, so only 51 examples of his signature are known. A letter bearing one sold for a record $51,000 in 1927.

Which English horse race, the oldest of Britain's five Classics, was first run near Doncaster in September 1776?

The St Leger is named after Anthony St Leger, the army officer and politician who devised it. Its first winner was an unnamed filly owned by the Marquess of Rockingham.

Which English clockmaker, who solved the problem of finding longitude at sea, died in London in March 1776?

John Harrison, a joiner by trade, invented the marine chronometer. He was 80 when Parliament voted him £8,750, after King George III tested one of his watches and took his side against the Board of Longitude.

Which state's 1776 constitution let unmarried women who owned property vote, a right taken away again in 1807?

New Jersey wrote its constitution in just five days, with a property test open to any person who met it. An 1807 law then scrapped the test while explicitly barring women and Black voters.

Which tongue-twisting word names the 250th anniversary that the United States, counting from 1776, reached in 2026?

Semiquincentennial events were planned for a decade by a congressional commission known as America250. Part of the 2026 World Cup was played in Philadelphia on the anniversary itself.

Which British general, knighted for his victories of 1776, drove Washington's army out of New York that autumn?

William Howe led Britain's land forces in America while his brother Richard, an admiral, commanded the fleet. He resigned the post in 1777 and returned to England the next year.