The American Revolution

1776 CE — North America, Thirteen Colonies

Today: The thirteen colonies (eastern United States)

Thirteen British colonies broke away to found a republic on a radical claim — that legitimate power flows from the consent of the governed, not from a king or God. Their success turned an Enlightenment idea into a working government and lit a fuse under every monarchy watching. It is a founding case of a legitimating narrative collapsing: the divine and imperial right to rule giving way to popular consent, an idea Europe was about to test far more violently.

Worth knowing: The revolution's ideals were penned largely by men who enslaved other people — a contradiction the writer Samuel Johnson skewered at the time: 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?'

Pattern: Legitimating-narrative collapse — The story that justifies an order (divine right, mandate, ideology) loses credibility; the order it propped up follows.

Entry 176 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.