Continental Congresses
This city hosted the First Continental Congress in September 1774.
Philadelphia
The author of Common Sense.
Thomas Paine
The date of the battles of Lexington and Concord.
April 19, 1775
The date Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence.
July 4, 1776
This 1777 American victory convinced France the colonists could win, leading to the alliance.
Saratoga
The Virginian chosen as commander in chief of the Continental Army.
George Washington
Common Sense was published in this month and year.
January 1776
The two riders who warned the countryside that British troops were marching.
Paul Revere and William Dawes
The principal author of the Declaration.
Thomas Jefferson
The year the Treaty of Alliance with France was signed.
1778
The system of non-importation and non-exportation agreements adopted by the First Continental Congress.
The Continental Association
Paine argued that this institution was absurd and that government should rest on the consent of the governed.
Monarchy
The British marched to Concord to seize these.
Colonial military supplies (the militia's weapons and gunpowder)
The Declaration's opening section is built on this Enlightenment idea about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Natural rights
This 19-year-old French nobleman became a major general in the Continental Army.
The Marquis de Lafayette
This July 1775 petition was Congress's final attempt at reconciliation with the king.
The Olive Branch Petition
Paine donated the profits from Common Sense to this cause.
The American Revolution (the war effort)
Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous phrase for the first shots fired at Lexington.
"The shot heard round the world"
The longest section of the Declaration is this list of complaints against King George III.
Grievances
The 1781 siege where Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war.
Yorktown
This Virginian introduced the resolution for independence on June 7, 1776.
Richard Henry Lee
"These are the times that try men's souls" opens this later Paine pamphlet series.
The American Crisis
The British general and royal governor of Massachusetts who ordered the march on Lexington and Concord.
Thomas Gage
When Congress voted on independence on July 2, 1776, this many colonies voted yes while New York abstained.
12
The French admiral whose fleet blockaded the British at Yorktown.
Admiral de Grasse