After 40 years of English colonial rule, residents of the Thirteen Colonies had had enough subjugation! The British Empire had overburdened them with taxes to pay for their expensive French and Indian War, and after the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776! The 7-year American Revolution that followed would result in the defeat of the world’s largest military power and the creation of the United States of America!