On July 6, 1775, one day after restating their fidelity to King George III and wishing him “a long and prosperous reign” in the Olive Branch Petition, Congress sets “forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms” against British authority in the American colonies. The declaration also proclaimed their preference “to die free men rather than live as slaves.”

As in the Olive Branch Petition, Congress never impugned the motives of the British king. Instead, they protested, “The large strides of late taken by the legislature of Great Britain toward establishing over these colonies their absolute rule…” Congress provided a history of colonial relations in which the king served as the sole governmental connection between the mother country and colonies, until, in their eyes, the victory against France in the Seven Years’ War caused Britain’s “new ministry finding all the foes of Britain subdued” to fall upon “the unfortunate idea of subduing her friends also.” According to the declaration, the king’s role remained constant, but “parliament then for the first time assumed a power of unbounded legislation over the colonies of America,” which resulted in the bloodletting at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

Source: history.com

So, in 2016,  Washington State had faithless electors and one or more charged $1000 …

1483 – King Richard III of England was crowned.

1699 – Captain William Kidd, the pirate, was captured in Boston, MA, and deported back to England.

1777 – British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution.

1854 – In Jackson, MI, the Republican Party held its first convention. 

1858 – Lyman Blake patented the shoe manufacturing machine.

1885 – Louis Pasteur successfully tested his anti-rabies vaccine. The child used in the test later became the director of the Pasteur Institute.

1905 – Fingerprints were exchanged for the first time between officials in Europe and the U.S. The person in question was John Walker. 

1917 – During World War I, Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence captured the port of Aqaba from the Turks.

1919 – A British dirigible landed in New York at Roosevelt Field. It completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

1923 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established.

1928 – “The Lights of New York” was previewed in New York’s Strand Theatre. It was the first all-talking movie.

1932 – The postage rate for first class mail in the U.S. went from 2-cents to 3-cents.

1933 – The first All-Star baseball game was held in Chicago. The American League beat the National League 4-2.

1942 – Diarist Anne Frank and her family took refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

1945 – U.S. President Truman signed an order creating the Medal of Freedom. 

1945 – Nicaragua became the first nation to formally accept the United Nations Charter.

1947 – “Candid Microphone” began airing on ABC radio.

1948 – Frieda Hennok became the first woman to serve as the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. 

1957 – Althea Gibson won the Wimbledon women’s singles tennis title. She was the first black athlete to win the event. 

1966 – Malawi became a republic within the Commonwealth with Dr. Hastings Banda as its first president.

1967 – The Biafran War erupted. The war lasted two-and-a-half years. About 600,000 people died.

1981 – Former President of Argentina Isabel Peron was freed after five years of house arrest by a federal court.

1981 – The Dupont Company announced an agreement to purchase Conoco, Inc. (Continental Oil Co.) for $7 billion. At the time it was the largest merger in corporate history.

1983 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retirement plans could not pay women smaller monthly payments solely because of their gender. 

1983 – Fred Lynn (California Angels) hit the first grand slam in an All-Star game. The American League defeated the National League 13-3.

1985 – Martina Navratilova won her 4th consecutive Wimbledon singles title.

1985 – The submarine Nautilus arrived in Groton, Connecticut. The vessel had been towed from Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

1988 – Several popular beaches were closed in New York City due to medical waste and other debris began washing up on the seashores.

1989 – The U.S. Army destroyed its last Pershing 1-A missiles at an ammunition plant in Karnack, TX. The dismantling was under the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. 

1996 – Steffi Graf won her seventh Wimbledon title.

1997 – The Mars Pathfinder released Sojourner, a robot rover on the surface of Mars. The spacecraft landed on the red planet on July 4th.

1997 – In Cambodia, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen ousted First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and claimed to have the capital under his control.

1998 – Protestants rioted in many parts of Northern Ireland after British authorities blocked an Orange Order march in Portadown.

2000 – A jury awarded former NHL player Tony Twist $24 million for the unauthorized use of his name in the comic book Spawn and the HBO cartoon series. Co-defendant HBO settled with Twist out of court for an undisclosed amount.