Moments That Made US
Two hundred and fi y years ago, delegates from the thirteen self-proclaimed United States of America signed the Declaration of Independence and changed the world. The signers gambled their lives on the future of a new nation, uncertain of what would follow as the ink dried.
The newly free and independent states proclaimed their right to break from an unjust ruler and formed a government based on theconsent of the governed, not a king. Their statement that all men are created equal introduced a new idea of freedom and argued that governments exist to protect natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders pledged to each other theirlives, fortunes, and sacred honor, beginning a national experiment that each generation of Americans has carried forward, writing our story one moment at a time. The ink is still drying.
Moments That Made US explores these founding principles and shares multiple perspectives from some of the United States’s most significant moments. They show how the nation has advanced the founders’ ideals, and when we’ve fallen short, inviting us to reflect on what it means to be American.
They show us that our story was never inevitable.
We shaped it at every turn.
