Today we honor those rebels, the colonists who stood against the most powerful navy and best trained professional army at the time, for a chance to be free to plot their own course in history - free from vengeful monarchs, unfair taxes, and oppressive military intervention upon its own citizens.

Those visionaries created a framework that gave people rights and the expectation of equality, self-governance, and separated the authority from a single person, to three branches which would actively keep the others in check from establishing autocratic rule.

Let us not forget what we fought for and what made this country a symbol of freedom, independence, and liberty for generations of peoples across the globe. 

Happy Independence Day!