Who could ever have imagined what was being unleashed on the world when Thomas Gage ordered 700 Redcoats to march out from Boston and seize supplies in the town of Concord? Who could have dreamed, 250 years ago, what would be built by the descendants of those 56 men who put their names to the Declaration of Independence while gathered in the Pennsylvania State House?

The United States of America turns 250 having enjoyed a near-uninterrupted run of success unmatched in world history. By her 100th birthday, the US was already master of an entire continent. By her 200th, she had won two world wars, invented the airplane, the atomic bomb and the transistor; created the motion picture and rock ’n’ roll; become the first automobile nation and put a man on the Moon. America in 1976 had just lost a major war for the first time ever, but she was anything but finished. Instead, she promptly embarked on a fresh run of global dominance during which she vanquished communism and launched the global digital revolution.

For all her vulnerabilities and all her struggles, America at 250 remains an exceptional country

For all her vulnerabilities and all her struggles, America at 250 remains an exceptional country

No nation’s golden age lasts forever. America arrives at her latest milestone still the world’s premier economic and geopolitical power, but one facing tests unlike any that have come before. No nation has ever absorbed as many immigrants as America has in the 50 years since its bicentennial. Today, the political bill is finally coming due on that decision. American politics is now defined by........

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