4 juill. 1776 - Declaration of Independence

Description:

In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies’ intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was mostly written by Jefferson in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence. The process of consideration and revision of Jefferson’s declaration, including Adams’ and Franklin’s corrections, continued on July 3 and into the late morning of July 4, during which Congress deleted and revised about one-fifth of its text. The delegates made no changes to that key preamble, however, and the basic document remained Jefferson’s words. Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence later on the Fourth of July, but most historians now accept that the document was not signed until August 2.