Words That Define America’s Founding

A simple word-search puzzle really got me thinking about the weighty and incredible implications of America’s founding.

Sloan Oliver | July 14, 2026

If you’re like my family, leading up to America 250, you’ve read articles and books, and watched a number of documentaries, Netflix series, and movies about colonial and revolutionary America — the time period from about 1750 until around 1800.  Those articles, movies, and videos discuss the events that led up to the Revolutionary War, the war itself and various battles, the Declaration of Independence, the difficulties of trying to forge a country together, writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, ratifying both, and the decade (or so) after ratification to include President George Washington’s two terms as president.  I feel like I’ve had several semesters of American history crammed into the past few months.

That said, in honor of America 250, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) sent out a “Land of the Free” word-search puzzle that had a number of words associated with patriotism and America’s founding.  Searching for each word, I thought about how that word related to early America, especially as I related the word to recent books I’ve read and movies/videos I’ve watched about our country’s founding.  The puzzle words were terms such as Founding Fathers, E pluribus unum, Bill of Rights, Manifest Destiny, American Dream, civil rights, and about forty others — pioneers, allegiance, sacrifice, reign, Washington (the only name on the list), independence, democracy, republic, constitution, revolution, patriot, statesman, service, suffrage, honor, duty, colony, settlement, Congress, and on went the list.  I realized, taken together, the words convey much of our country’s history and the character traits of........

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