11 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: John Adams is ready to seek permission from Massachusetts to return home; nothing that follows in Congress can equal the great work of forging an alliance of the colonies, creating state constitutions and declaring independence. founders.archives.gov/documents/Ad...

11 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: Deciding that the British have no plans to attack Boston, Washington summons the last two Continental regiments from its garrison to reinforce him, and writes to the Massachusetts assembly asking for help enlisting Indian warriors. founders.archives.gov/documents/Wa...

always fun to remember that when John Adams talks about “the South” he means “including Pennsylvania”

10 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: “It is One Thing for Colonies to declare themselves independent, and another to establish themselves in Independancy”: Rhode Island congressional delegate William Ellery is aware of the long road still remaining.

10 JULY 1776, STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK: The packet ship Mercury, having put to see yesterday, pauses before her Atlantic crossing to accept mail from the Royal Navy’s flagship, which is apparently where she takes aboard the first copy of the Declaration of Independence that will reach England.

10 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: In response to reports of Indian atrocities against Continental soldiers taken at Les Cèdres, the Continental Congress decrees that all such future atrocities will be treated as being ordered by George III directly and avenged upon British prisoners.

10 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: As states write new constitutions, John Adams writes to Abigail in surprised delight that “the Colonies to the South” are creating governments that are “remarkably popular [democratic], more so than I could ever have imagined.”

10 JULY 1776, LONDON: “Wars and rumours of wars!” are the talk of the town. But the actual American war isn’t the topic of Horace Walpole’s letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory; rather, it’s the potential war with France and Spain over the border between Brazil and Uruguay.

9 JULY 1776, GWYNN’S ISLAND, VIRGINIA: The Earl of Dunmore, Virginia’s last royal governor, is driven from the province entirely by an attack from Virginia cannon positioned on the mainland shore. allthingsliberty.com/2016/05/batt...

Much of the statue was carried off and melted down. A few fragments survived, like these at The Museum Of The American Revolution in Philadelphia, which notes that battlefield musket balls have been found matching the composition of lead and tin. The statue was sent back to the British in anger.

9 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: On Washington’s orders, at 6 p.m. the brigades of the Continental Army are assembled at their parade grounds around town for a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. Afterward, a riotous crowd destroys the statue of George III in celebration.

9 JULY 1776, STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK: At some point in the evening, the senior officers of the British armada acquire a printed copy of the Declaration of Independence—whether one of the Dunlap broadsides or from a newspaper, we do not know.

9 JULY 1776, WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK: The provincial convention of the only colony that did not vote to declare independence unanimously approves the Declaration of Independence and orders New York’s Continental Congress delegation to change their vote.

8 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: The Continental Congress attempt to end the dispute over command in upstate New York between Philip Schuyler and Horatio Gates without actually saying aloud that Schuyler is in overall command, which will definitely fix the problem:

8 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: The committee of secret correspondence send a copy of the Declaration of Independence to Silas Deane, Congress’s secret ambassador to France, so he can “immediately communicate the piece to the Court of France, and send copies of it to the other Courts of Europe.”

8 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: Washington writes to William Livingston, in command of the militia guarding eastern New Jersey, asking him to find spies who can slip across to Staten Island to gather intelligence on the redcoat armada. founders.archives.gov/documents/Wa...

8 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: The first public reading of the Declaration of Independence: local politician & militia officer John Nixon proclaims the Declaration from the State House yard, and Philadelphia’s most famous bell is rung.

7 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: The prisoners crowded into the city’s inadequate facilities attempt to riot, but a quick-thinking Continental Army sergeant suppresses them:

7 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: “The large Army we have here, quartered in or near a City debauch’d enough to corrupt the best Forces in the World, furnishes so many Subjects for Punishment that I am uninterruptedly employ’d at a Court Martial,” writes William Tudor, the Continental Army’s judge advocate.

7 JULY 1776, BRAINTREE, MASSACHUSETTS: Abigail Adams is preparing to get herself and her children inoculated against smallpox, and invites John Thaxter to join them in the lengthy, painful process, if he can pay his own way. founders.archives.gov/documents/Ad...

7 JULY 1776, CROWN POINT, NEW YORK: “We found the wretched remains of what was once a very respectable Body of Troops”: Horatio Gates, Philip Schuyler and Benedict Arnold inspect the remnants of the Continental Army that retreated from its year-long invasion of Canada:

7 JULY 1776, CHATEAU DE MARLY: The French foreign minister, Vergennes, presents a memorandum to Louis XVI and his council on why he believes both Spain and Great Britain want the Spanish-Portuguese crisis to turn into war—a war that would involve France.

6 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: The Pennsylvania Evening Post becomes the first newspaper to publish the Declaration of Independence, providing ordinary people their first exposure to its text.

6 JULY 1776, WILLIAMSBURG: The committee of safety is dissolved, and Virginia’s new constitution takes effect. The state’s first independent governor, Patrick Henry, and his elected privy council are sworn into office.

6 JULY 1776, BOSTON: Having been imprisoned for months without trial and unable to get the Massachusetts assembly to tell him what he’s charged with, Loyalist William Jackson writes to the Continental Congress asking them to intervene: www.masshist.org/database/vie...

6 JULY 1776, STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK: Loyalists from New York and New Jersey are attempting to reach Staten Island now that the redcoats have seized it—as are Continental Army deserters.

6 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: “The Congress have judged it necessary to dissolve all Connection between Great Britain and the American Colonies”: John Hancock, president of Congress, notifies states governments & George Washington of the Declaration of Independence.

6 JULY 1776, OXFORD: Massachusetts Loyalist Thomas Hutchinson encounters an old, presumably Iranian warrior who served in the elite regiments of both the Persian and British armies before settling in Oxford as a fencing master.

6 JULY 1776, PARIS: Connecticut lawyer Silas Deane arrives in the French capital and takes rooms the at the Hôtel du Grand Villars on the Left Bank, masquerading as a merchant but on a secret mission from Congress to make contact with the French foreign minister, Vergennes.

5 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: “In Times as turbulent as these, commend me to the Ladies for Historiographers,” writes John Adams to Mary Palmer. “The Gentlemen are too much engaged in Action. The Ladies are cooler Spectators.” founders.archives.gov/documents/Ad...

5 JULY 1776, STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK: Stephen Kemble, deputy adjutant general of the redcoat army (and a native New Yorker), visits an outpost across the channel from the American fortifications in New Jersey:

5 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: “I have Reason to beleive the Enemy is waiting for the European Fleet & will not make a general Attack untill it arrives”: George Washington refuses to fortify New Jersey with Continental troops to oppose the redcoats on Staten Island. founders.archives.gov/documents/Wa...

5 JULY 1776, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: Intelligence from captured British prisoners confirms that the redcoat armada is awaiting the arrival of an additional, even larger fleet from the British Isles before launching their attack on New York: founders.archives.gov/documents/Wa...

5 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: George Washington’s daily orders contain a reward notice for the lost wallet of a certain Alexander Hamilton, and an announcement that it’s unacceptable for officers to send such notices for the daily orders and it better not happen again. founders.archives.gov/documents/Wa...

5 JULY 1776, BOSTON: (False) news circulates among the Continental Army garrison that “our people had a battle” at New York, killing or capturing seven thousand redcoats while suffering two thousand casualties themselves.

5 JULY 1776, WEYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS: “Yesterday People in Boston were openly inoculated for the Small Pox”: Cotton Tufts writes to John Adams with news of measures to alleviate a public health crisis. founders.archives.gov/documents/Ad...

5 JULY 1776, QUEBEC: One of the guards of the prisoners of war sees a Continental soldier remove one of the bars of his cell. After he gets off duty, he informs his superior. An immediate search reveals many such sabotaged bars:

5 JULY 1776, NIEUWPOORT, AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS: The British vice consul, John Peter, is financially ruined when a local court finds him personally liable for the destruction of a cargo of illegal weapons an Irish captain was trying to smuggle for the American war effort.

5 JULY 1776, PARIS: Benjamin Franklin’s longtime French correspondent Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg writes to him with “the greatest secret”: France is arming to go to war with Great Britain “at see and on land, which has to take place as soon as possible.” founders.archives.gov/documents/Fr...

5 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: Printed copies of the Declaration of Independence are distributed to members of Congress, so they can forward them to state governments, military commanders and other correspondents. Printed by John Dunlap, they’re known as the Dunlap Broadsides.

Today is the 250th anniversary of Boston’s mass inoculation against smallpox on July 3, 1776. The city was effectively closed to commerce from July through September 1776. The mass immunization effort was cheered as evidence of true independence. Here's how I described it in my book:

4 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: The Continental Congress appoints a committee of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to design “a seal for the United States of America.”

4 JULY 1776, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: “Our Wives & Children unprotected either from the Enemy without or the Tories & Negroes in the midst of us”: With the British seizing Staten Island, the Newark committee of correspondence implore George Washington for troops.

4 JULY 1776, NEW YORK: With the British armada gathering at the mouth of the harbor, Continental regiments receive permission to fire two rounds each in target practice—and one man dies in the process.

4 JULY 1776, STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK: The British army fortifies Staten Island where it faces across the channel to New Jersey: “We are fully Confirmed in the Enemy’s having Posts along the whole Staten Island Shore as far as Amboy—

4 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: That still leaves us with two unanswered questions about the adoption of the Declaration of Independence: what time it was adopted, and who signed it today.

4 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: At just what time did Congress vote to accept the final form of the Declaration of Independence? Who signed it today? And who was present, and who absent?

4 JULY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another”: The Second Continental Congress adopts the final text of the Declaration of Independence. www.archives.gov/founding-doc...

4 JULY 1776, LISBON: The King of Portugal issues an edict declaring Portuguese ports closed to American shipping; Portugal will not connive with rebels against the King of Great Britain.

4 JULY 1776, OXFORD: Thomas Hutchinson & Peter Oliver, the two native-born Bostonians who did more than any other royal officials to provoke the violent crisis between Massachusetts and the imperial government, receive honorary doctorates from Oxford University.