Which founding document does the United States’ 250th anniversary commemorate?

The United States’ 250th anniversary commemorates the Declaration of Independence.

The Second Continental Congress adopted the document in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. It announced that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as independent states rather than colonies subject to British rule. The anniversary in 2026 marks 250 years since that adoption.

The Declaration was not the United States Constitution, which was drafted and signed more than a decade later in 1787. Nor was it the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the Revolutionary War in 1783. Those documents are central to American history, but they do not provide the anniversary’s starting point.

The Declaration contains a political explanation of independence, a list of grievances against King George III, and a statement that the colonies were entering a new relationship as free and independent states. Thomas Jefferson wrote the principal draft, with revisions by the Committee of Five and Congress.