The Bolshoi Theatre and the United States are the same age: the theatre dates from March 1776, the Declaration of Independence from July of that year.

1776

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The event

• US Declaration of Independence1776 · Philadelphia. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration drafted by Thomas Jefferson, proclaiming the thirteen colonies independent of Britain. Its words on equality and unalienable rights inspired revolutions around the world.

18th century

More amazing facts

• 1751 · 1762 Catherine II corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot and offered to publish the Encyclopédie, banned in France, in Riga.
• 1755 In January 1755 Moscow University was founded; that November an earthquake destroyed Lisbon and shook all of Europe.
• 1755 Moscow University was founded in January 1755.
• 1769 · 1820 Antarctica was first sighted only in 1820, by the Bellingshausen–Lazarev expedition — by then Watt's steam engine was already half a century old.
• 1775 · 1776 In January 1775 Pugachev was executed in Moscow; in April the first shots of the American War of Independence were fired.
• 1804 1804: Napoleon crowned himself emperor, while the former slaves of Haiti, having beaten his army, declared independence — the first nation founded by a slave revolt.

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