Congress adopts a new flag for independent America – the stars and stripes

George Washington, heavily defeated in a battle at Brandywine, is forced to relinquish Philadelphia to the British

The American general Horatio Gates captures the army of General Burgoyne near Saratoga

The US Congress agrees the final version of the Articles of Confederation, defining the terms on which states join the Union

In Brook Watson and the Shark John Singleton Copley creates the most intensely dramatic of his modern history paintings

The British rapidly abandon Philadelphia on news of the expected arrival of a French fleet

The British adopt a new policy in the south, landing in Georgia and capturing much of South Carolina

Francis Hopkinson's popular ballad The Battle of the Kegs describes an ingenious American threat to the British navy

The capture of British go-between John André yields proof that US general Benedict Arnold is in the pay of the British

British army officer John André is executed in New York as a spy

Maryland, ratifies the Articles of Confederation (the last state to do so), completing 'the Confederation of the United States'

The Bank of North America is established by the Continental Congress to lend money to the fledgling Revolutionary government

US poet Philip Freneau describes in The British Prison Ship the horrors of his experiences as a prisoner

Ann Lee leads her Shaker colleagues in a missionary tour of New England lasting two years

The British general Charles Cornwallis, isolated at Yorktown, is forced to surrender in the final engagement of the Revolutionary War

Some 40,000 Loyalists flee from British America to the previously French colonies, in particular Nova Scotia

US lexicographer Noah Webster publishes a Spelling Book for American children that eventually will sell more than 60 million copies

Benjamin Franklin, irritated at needing two pairs of spectacles, commissions from a lens-grinder the first bifocals

US author Philip Freneau publishes his first collection of poems, dating back to 1771

Daniel Shays is the most prominent figure in a violent protest movement by farmers against the government of Massachusetts

The Continental Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, a plan for the establishment of new states north and west of the Ohio river

Delegates meeting in Philadelphia agree a final draft for a US consitution, to be submitted to the states for ratification

The Federalist Papers, in support of the Constitution and mainly written by Alexander Hamilton, begin appearing in New York

The constitution of the United States is ratified by the states, but it is immediately agreed that amendments will be desirable

George Washington, unanimously elected first president of the United States, is inaugurated on Wall Street in New York