The United States of America was once a colony of Great Britain. The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783. The skirmishes between the British troops and the colonial soldiers at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 started the armed conflict and the following summer the rebels started a full-scale fight for their independence.
France entered the American Revolution on the colonial side in 1778, turning what was essentially a civil war into an international conflict. Since the French helped the Continental Army to force the British to surrender in Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the Americans had effectively won their independence, though battles officially ended in 1783.
The United States of America was eventually founded. The Declaration of Independence of the United States between the first 13 states is a national holiday (4 July – 1776).