On this day in 1783, The American Revolution finally comes to a close with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Involving representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Spain, it cemented America’s status as a free nation, as Britain formally recognized the independence of its 13 former American colonies, and the boundaries of the new republic were established: Florida north to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. The events leading up to the treaty dated back to April 1775, when American colonists in Lexington, Massachusetts responded to King George III’s refusal to grant them economic and political reform with armed revolution. On July 4, 1776, more than a year after the first shots of the war rang out, the Second Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson. Five years later, in October 1781, British General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered to American and French forces a...

On this day in 1803, French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand makes an unprecedented offer to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States. As the foreign minister to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Talleyrand was one of the most powerful men in the world. Three years earlier, Talleyrand had persuaded Napoleon that he could form a new French Empire in North America. The French had laid claim to the expansive swath of land west of the Mississippi River known as Louisiana Territory. In 1800, Napoleon furtively signed a treaty with Spain that officially gave France complete control of the territory. He then began to ready France’s army to occupy New Orleans. When President Thomas Jefferson learned of Napoleon’s plans in 1802, he was rightly concerned. Jefferson had long hoped the U.S. would expand westward beyond the Mississippi, but the fledgling American republic lacked the military might to challenge France for the territory. Jefferson hoped that his m...