Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Had To Be 1776

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Hello everyone.

And a very happy Fourth of July to everyone, particularly my American friends.

Independence Day again, and no sign of invading spaceships so I’m assuming its safe to do another number factoid.

And what else could it be today other than 1776, the year America became an independent nation.

Here we go.

Enjoy

And where else to start but with….

American Revolutionary War

On January 1^st, 1776 Gen George Washington hoisted the Continental Union Flag. The same day the town of Norfolk, Virginia, was destroyed by the combined actions of the British Royal Navy and occupying Patriot forces.
On Jan 5^th the Assembly of New Hampshire adopts its 1st state constitution.
On January 10^th Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense “written by an Englishman” in Philadelphia arguing for independence from British rule in what were then the Thirteen Colonies.

On Jan 16^th the Continental Congress approves enlistment of free blacks.
On February 27^th Scottish North Carolina Loyalists charge across Moore’s Creek bridge near Wilmington to attack what they mistakenly believed to be a small force of rebels. Several loyalist leaders are killed in the ensuing battle. The patriot victory virtually ended all British authority in the province.
On March 2^nd and 3^rd the American Continental Navy and Marines made a successful assault on Nassau, Bahamas, and in the Battle of the Rice Boats, American Patriots resisted the Royal Navy on the Savannah River effectively ending British control over the Province of Georgia.
On March 4^th American Patriots capture Dorchester Heights thereby dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Threatened by the Patriot cannons on Dorchester Heights, the British evacuate Boston on March 17^th.
On April 12^th the Royal Colony of North Carolina produced the Halifax Resolves making it the first British colony officially to authorize its Continental Congress delegates to vote for independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On May 4^th Rhode Island became the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III of Great Britain.
On June 7^th Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Second Continental Congress (meeting in Philadelphia) that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”
On June 11^th the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five to draft a Declaration of Independence.

On June 12^th the Virginia Declaration of Rights by George Mason was adopted by the Virginia Convention of Delegates and three days later on June 15^th the Delaware General Assembly voted to suspend government under the British Crown.
On July 2^nd the final (despite minor revisions) U.S. Declaration of Independence was written. The Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution.
And as we all know, on July 4^th the United States Declared Independence: The Continental Congress ratified the declaration by the United States of its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.
On July 8^th the Liberty Bell rang in Philadelphia for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence and the following day an angry mob in New York City toppled the equestrian statue of George III of Great Britain in Bowling Green.

On August 2^nd most of the American colonies ratify the Declaration of Independence.
On August 15^th the first Hessian troops land on Staten Island to join British forces.
On August 27^th in the Battle of Long Island, Washington’s troops were routed in Brooklyn by British under William Howe.
On September 1^st the Cherokee Nation was invaded by 6,000 patriot troops from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina begins. The troops destroyed thirty-six Cherokee towns.
On September 7^th saw the world’s first submarine attack when the American submersible craft Turtle attempted to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe’s flagship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor.
On September 11^th an abortive peace conference took place between British and Americans on Staten Island.
On September 15^th British troops landed on Manhattan at Kips Bay.
On September 16^th in the Battle of Harlem Heights, the Continental Army under Washington are victorious against the British on Manhattan.
On September 22^nd the British hanged spy Nathan Hale in New York City for espionage.
The following month, on October 11^th on Lake Champlain near Valcour Island, a British fleet led by Sir Guy Carleton defeated 15 American gunboats commanded by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold. Although nearly all of Arnold’s ships are destroyed, the two day-long battle gave Patriot forces enough time to prepare defenses of New York City.
On October 18^th in the Battle of Pell’s Point, forces of the American Continental Army resisted a British and Hessian force in The Bronx, whilst on October 28 in the Battle of White Plains, British forces attacked and captured Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
On October 26^th Benjamin Franklin departed from America for France on a mission to seek French support for the American Revolution.

The last day of that month, October 31^st saw King George III make his first speech before British Parliament since the Declaration of Independence that summer, in which in perhaps the understatement of the year, told the British Parliament that all was not going well for Britain in the war with the United States.
On November 16^th Hessian mercenaries under Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen captured Fort Washington from the American Continentals. The captain of the American navy ship Andrew Doria fired a salute to the Dutch flag on Fort Orange and Johannes de Graaff answers with eleven gun shots.
On December 7^th the Marquis de Lafayette attempted to enter the American military as a major general.
And on December 21^st the Royal Colony of North Carolina reorganizes into the State of North Carolina after adopting its own constitution. Richard Caswell becomes the first governor of the newly formed state.
On December 23^rd Thomas Paine, living with Washington’s troops, began publishing The American Crisis, containing the stirring phrase, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
At Christmas 1776, Gen. George Washington ordered the first issue of The Crisis to be read to his troops on Christmas Eve, then at 6 p.m. all 2600 of them march to McKonkey’s Ferry, crossed the Delaware River and land on the Jersey bank at 3 a.m.
And finally December 26^th saw the Battle of Trenton, in which Washington’s troops surprised and defeated the 1500 Hessian troops under the command of Col. Johann Rall outside Trenton, taking 948 prisoners while suffering only 5 wounded.

In other things and other places in 1776

The year 1776 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.
In Roman Numerals 1776 is written as MDCCLXXVI.
On January 2^nd Austria ended interrogation torture
On February 17^th Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his famous work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

On March 9^th Scottish economist Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in London.
On March 28^th Juan Bautista de Anza found the site for the Presidio of San Francisco.
On April 15^th the Duchess of Kingston was found guilty of bigamy.
On May 1^st Adam Weishaupt founded the Illuminati in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.
On June 17^th Lt. Jose Joaquin Moraga leads a band of colonists from Monterey Presidio, landing on June 29^th and constructing the Mission Dolores of the new Presidio of San Francisco.
On July 12^th Captain James Cook sets off from Plymouth, England, in HMS Resolution on his third voyage, to the Pacific Ocean and Arctic, which would turn out to be fatal.

On July 21^st Mozart’s Serenade No. 7 (the “Haffner”) is first performed in Salzburg, Austria.
On July 29^th Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, and eight other Spaniards set out from Santa Fe on an eighteen-hundred mile trek through the American Southwest. They were the first Europeans to explore the vast region between the Rockies and the Sierras.
On September 6^th a hurricane hit Guadeloupe, killing more than 6000 people.
On September 24^th the first of the now very famous St Leger horse races were held at Doncaster, England.
On October 7^th Crown Prince Paul of Russia married Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg.
On October 9^th Father Francisco Palou founded the Mission San Francisco de Asis in what is now San Francisco, California.
On October 18^th in a New York bar decorated with a bird tail, a customer orders “cock tail”.
On December 5^th the first US fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa (William & Mary College), is formed.

The Standard Practice for Conditioning and Testing Textiles is Active Standard ASTM D1776
The Standard Specification for Eye Protective Devices for Paintball Sports is Active Standard ASTM F1776.
MTE M-1776 is a Surge Protective Device
P1776 is the code for solenoid stuck in low/reverse which is a fairly common problem and can be prevented most of the time by keeping the fluid clean.
The 1776 Premier Program offers a venue for highly-committed, elite players to receive professional, year-round coaching and to seek competition at the highest levels of US Youth Soccer.

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