Note: Presenting via Zoom as part of the Smithsonian Associates program.

At the start of 1776, few Americans sought independence, grounding their protests instead in the rights of British subjects. By year’s end, independence had become unavoidable. Historian Edward J. Larson chronicles this pivotal year in American history, from the inspiring appeals of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in January; through midsummer, when the Second Continental Congress grounded independence in the “self-evident” truths of human equality and individual rights; to Paine’s urgent pleas of December, when “the times that try men’s souls” required Americans not to “shrink from the service of their country.” Together, revolutionary ideals and battlefield sacrifices reveal why 1776 remains a defining moment.