At the time, Great Britain’s King George III ruled an empire on which “the sun never sets.” Its vast wealth was strengthened by trade and protected by a powerful navy and a professional army, making it a global power of the first order. By contrast, the colonists’ army had little equipment or formal training.
- In 1776, our infant nation was composed of thirteen colonies with about 2.5 million people. Today, we are fifty states and fourteen territories with a population of more than 330 million.
- Our economy has grown to over $27 trillion.
- Our child mortality rate has fallen from over 45 percent to under 1 percent.
- Our citizens live over thirty-five years longer on average.
- Our scientific achievements have delivered the light bulb, modern flight, the internet, air conditioning, movies, the polio vaccine, and the list goes on.
- More than 2.7 million miles of power lines electrify the country.
- We have paved more than four million miles of roads.
- We have been responsible for more than eight hundred human visits to space—the most of any country.