The Declaration of Independence has been described as the most important document in human history. Here, in the memorable language of the famous preamble, a hundred and ten words fatally undermined the political basis of the old order and proclaimed a new era in which free peoples would henceforth govern themselves.

By the spring of 1776 a series of astonishing events - the Boston Tea Party, the closing of Boston Harbor, the hostilities at Lexington and Concord, the Gunpowder Incident in Williamsburg, and the Battle of Bunker Hill - had transformed the political landscape. George III proclaimed the colonies to be in open rebellion, and Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, attacked monarchical government and called upon the American colonies to declare themselves free and independent. A battle had been fought and won in Virginia, and the port city of Norfolk had been fired on by the British fleet with nine hundred houses destroyed by the fires started by the cannonballs. After the defeat of Lord Dunmore at Gwynn's Island on July 9, before Virginia had received notification of the Declaration of Independence, the British left Virginia.... More • http://en.wikipedia. ... dependence View • Books • Images • Videos • Search Related • Independence • Revolutions • Texts • Traditions • Government • Industrial Revolution • July 04 • USA • All Events • 18th Century