Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze, 1851 Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Special Report

America’s 250th Anniversary

To mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding on July 4, 1776, Smithsonian magazine is highlighting the people, places and events that shaped the United States’ fight for independence from Great Britain

Gordon S. Wood was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama in 2011.

Four Reasons You Should Know More About Gordon S. Wood, the Scholar of the American Revolution Who Died This Week at Age 92

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, who wrote of the “radicalism” of the country’s founding, was killed in a hit-and-run accident in a parking lot

Workers recovered this cannon from the Savannah River in 2022.

Cool Finds

Workers Dredging the Savannah River Stumbled Upon 19 Cannons That Had Been Underwater Since the Revolutionary War

The centuries-old artifacts emerged from the riverbed between 2021 and 2022. Experts spent several years carefully restoring 17 of them, which will make their public debut in a new exhibition

Liberty Lager is a brew inspired by Washington’s small beer recipe.

Smart News

George Washington Recorded a Recipe for Beer While Leading a Militia. Thanks to the New York Public Library, You Can Imbibe That History This Summer

To celebrate America’s 250th birthday, the library partnered with a brewery to produce the founding father’s beer — and an updated version more pleasing to modern palates

This painting, titled Excelsior, shows Liberty and Justice as allegorical figures. A new exhibition “moves past symbolism to center the real expertise and labor of women who navigated a world of blurred allegiances to help found the United States,” says Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the New York Historical.

History

During the Revolution, American Women Fought for Freedom, Spied on the British, Cared for the Sick and Fell in Love. A New Exhibition Reveals Their Rich Wartime Stories

Now on view at the New York Historical, “Revolutionary Women” spotlights figures with connections to the state, including a Jewish chocolatier, a Mohawk leader and a woman who disguised herself as a man to enlist in the Continental Army

Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, painted terra cotta and tin, ca. 1884

At the Smithsonian

This Remarkable Statue of Liberty Model Made by the Sculptor of the Original Has a New Summer Home at the Smithsonian Castle

Artist Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s small maquette represents the big ideals of the iconic national monument in New York Harbor

The new coin is one of five special quarter designs commemorating America's 250th birthday.

Smart News

See the New Quarter Honoring Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence That Enters Circulation Next Week, Ahead of America’s 250th Birthday

The design is one of several coin denominations, and the third of five new quarters, made specially for the country’s semiquincentennial

More From the Archives

Pulling Down the Statue of George III, Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, engraved by John C. McRae, published by Joseph Laing, 1859

Smart News

In 1776, Angry New Yorkers Tore Down a Statue of George III With a Revolutionary Fervor. A New Exhibition Lets You Do It, Too

New York City played a pivotal role in the American Revolution. This museum brings the city’s 18th-century history to life through artifacts, immersive environments and interactive experiences

May 27, 2026

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Smart News

An Illuminating New Museum Hidden Beneath the Lincoln Memorial Is Set to Open to the Public. Here’s What You Can Expect

Tickets for the Lincoln Memorial undercroft museum are now available to reserve. When the attraction opens on June 25, visitors will get to see the D.C. landmark from a whole new perspective

May 27, 2026

Smart News

To Mark America’s 250th Birthday, See the Country’s ‘Most Endangered Historic Places’ You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

From a Revolutionary War battlefield to a civil rights-era safe haven, these historic sites are at risk, according to the latest list from the National Trust for Historic Preservation

May 22, 2026

Founders and Unsung Heroes

A depiction of George Washington and his mother, Mary Ball Washington, attending a ball celebrating the surrender at Yorktown in 1781

History

The Reinvention of George Washington's Mother, From Paragon of Virtue to Greedy Shrew to Widow Striving for Independence

A new biography examines how 19th-century Americans remembered Mary Ball Washington, who raised the future president largely on her own after her husband’s death in 1743

William E. Leuchtenburg's new book spotlights (from left to right) George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams.

History

What the American Revolution Taught the United States' First Presidents

A new book by historian William E. Leuchtenburg examines how the first six commanders in chief embodied the revolutionary spirit and set precedents that shaped their successors' tenures

Sybil Ludington has been called the "female Paul Revere."

History

Did the Midnight Ride of Sibyl Ludington Ever Happen?

What to make of the alluring legend of the New York teen who warned that the Redcoats were coming

Detail of a copy of the Declaration printed by Goddard

History

Mary Katharine Goddard, the Woman Whose Name Appears on the Declaration of Independence

Likely the United States' first woman employee, this newspaper publisher was a key figure in promoting the ideas that fomented the Revolution

Catalysts for Revolution

This engraving by Paul Revere offered a specific argument about what happened that day in Boston.

History

A Fresh Look at the Boston Massacre, 250 Years After the Event That Jumpstarted the Revolution

The five deaths may have shook the colonies, but a new book examines the personal relationships forever changed by them too

The Bostonians’ “preferred outcome” was for the tea to be “peacefully sent back to London,” says historian Benjamin L. Carp. “It’s only when they find out … the governor is not going to let [that happen] that they say, ‘Well, we have no choice [but] to destroy [the tea].”

History

The Many Myths of the Boston Tea Party

Contrary to popular belief, the 1773 protest opposed a tax break, not a tax hike. And it didn't immediately unify the colonies against the British

History

At a Bold Meeting 250 Years Ago, the Continental Congress Set America in Motion

While far less famous than the coalition that met in 1775, this group of founders found agreement in their disagreements and laid the groundwork for a revolution

“Here … we claim the first blow was struck in the war of independence,” wrote Salem historian Charles Moses Endicott in his account of Leslie's Retreat.

History

Was This Little-Known Standoff Between British Soldiers and Colonists the Real Start of the American Revolution?

On February 26, 1775, residents of Salem, Massachusetts, banded together to force the British to withdraw from their town during an oft-overlooked encounter known as Leslie's Retreat

The Revolutionary War

A romanticized 1975 depiction of Daniel Morgan's riflemen at the Battle of Bemis Heights in Saratoga, New York, on October 7, 1777

History

How a Relentless, 484-Mile March From Virginia to Massachusetts Fueled the Legend of the Dashing Frontier Rifleman

In the early months of the American Revolution, Daniel Morgan and his soldiers raced north to join the Continental Army during the so-called Beeline March

A replica of Benjamin West's <em>Reception of the American Loyalists by Great Britain in the Year 1783 </em>appears in the background of this 1812 portrait of English judge John Eardley Wilmot.

History

Meet the Defiant Loyalists Who Paid Dearly for Choosing the Wrong Side in the American Revolution

American colonists who aligned with the British lost their lands, their reputations and sometimes even their lives

This John Trumbull painting of the Battle of Bunker Hill presents a romanticized version of Joseph Warren's death.

History

This Forgotten Founding Father Hoped to 'Die Up to My Knees in Blood' in the Fight for American Independence. He Got His Wish

Joseph Warren was a key leader of the American Revolution, mobilizing troops and managing a circle of spies. But he's mainly remembered for his death at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775

This painting by Louis-Nicolas Van Blarenberghe, court painter of battles to France’s King Louis XVI, depicts the 1781 formal surrender of the British army at Yorktown, Virginia. The original is at the Palace of Versailles. This secondary version was created in 1786 for French General Comte de Rochambeau, the commander of the French forces at Yorktown

At the Smithsonian

The American Revolution Was Just One Battlefront in a Huge World War

A new Smithsonian exhibition examines the global context that bolstered the colonists’ fight for independence