{"id":6040,"date":"2026-10-10T22:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T22:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/how-the-united-states-became-a-country-bbc-world-service\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T22:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T22:13:14","slug":"how-the-united-states-became-a-country-bbc-world-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/how-the-united-states-became-a-country-bbc-world-service\/","title":{"rendered":"How the United States became a country &#8211; BBC World Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4PmGTEiq4Fo?autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>The United States of America is 250 years old &#8211; but how did it become a country in the first place? <\/p>\n<p>Click here to subscribe to our channel \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/bbc.in\/3VyyriM<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a story which begins with Spain sending Christopher Columbus to find a new route to Asia in 1492, and ends with a war between Britain and its own colonies in North America, who declare independence in 1776. This is America\u2019s origin story.<\/p>\n<p>00:00 How did the United States become a country?<br \/>\n00:31 How Columbus initiated a wave of European colonisation<br \/>\n01:12 Why Britain colonised North America<br \/>\n01:41 How the English settled in Jamestown, Britain\u2019s first American colony, in 1607<br \/>\n02:16 The impact of colonisation on Native Americans<br \/>\n02:45 The role of the African slave trade in the American colonies<br \/>\n03:33 How British colonies expanded in America<br \/>\n04:23 The impact of Britain\u2019s war against France<br \/>\n05:12 How tensions grew between Britain and the colonies<br \/>\n05:53 The origin of the American Revolution: The role of Boston\u2019s protests and the Tea Party<br \/>\n06:30 George Washington and the start of the war against Britain<br \/>\n07:12 The first call for Independence: Thomas Paine\u2019s pamphlet \u201cCommon Sense\u201d<br \/>\n07:52 What happened on 4 July:  the Declaration of Independence<br \/>\n08:13 Why the Declaration of Independence didn\u2019t end the war with Britain<br \/>\n09:02 How George Washington led the American army to victory against Britain<br \/>\n09:58 How the Americans wrote the first Constitution and elected George Washington as President.<br \/>\n10:21 How the events of the revolution still shape the United States of America<\/p>\n<p>Watch more of our explainers here  \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLz_B0PFGIn4fbmNPr-V3sl3lZ5NRNv72l <\/p>\n<p>Watch more documentaries from across BBC World Service here  \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLz_B0PFGIn4fADt3h_U2SOWErIq-xtXPD<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br \/>\nThis is the official BBC World Service YouTube channel.<br \/>\nIf you like what we do, you can also find us here:<br \/>\nInstagram \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcworldservice<br \/>\nTwitter \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcworldservice<br \/>\nFacebook \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/facebook.com\/bbcworldservice<br \/>\nBBC World Service website \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/worldserviceradio<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for watching and subscribing!<br \/>\n#BBCWorldService #WorldService #usa #americanhistory #history<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4PmGTEiq4Fo\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States of America is 250 years old &#8211; but how did it become a country in the first place? Click here to subscribe to our channel \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/bbc.in\/3VyyriM It\u2019s a story which begins with Spain sending Christopher Columbus to find a new route to Asia in 1492, and ends with a war between [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4155150479,"featured_media":6041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4215,8845,11930,15,369,1361,1368,772,1367,4214,11929,11925,11926,11924,11927,11928,11922,11923,1366,328,1362,1363,11681,11921,1365,1364],"class_list":["post-6040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-american-history","tag-american-revolution","tag-american-revolution-oversimplified","tag-bbc","tag-bbc-documentary","tag-bbc-world-service","tag-docs","tag-documentaries","tag-explainers","tag-history-of-america","tag-history-of-the-us","tag-how-america","tag-how-america-was-founded","tag-how-did-the-us-became-a-country","tag-how-the-english","tag-how-the-english-colonized-america","tag-how-the-us-became-a-country","tag-how-the-us-became-the-us","tag-investigations","tag-podcast","tag-podcasts","tag-radio","tag-us-history","tag-us-history-crash-course","tag-world-service","tag-world-service-radio","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4155150479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}