The first time the country had to gather itself, it wasn’t a country yet. It was a string of British colonies, distinct and often differing, but lately chatting among themselves about their relationship with the same man. Being colonial, the relationship was lopsided: they did the work, then had to pay the King. The colonies weren’t sure what they wanted. But they knew it wasn’t this.
Depending on how it’s told, a story a quarter of a millennium old can still feel fresh. A new TIME Studios project, On This Day…1776, relates America’s anniversary story without fifes, drums, or cake. It’s a weekly series of episodes—just a few minutes apiece—each debuting around the date of the event it depicts 250 years earlier. Executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, the acclaimed filmmaker whose work includes Black Swan, The Whale, and Caught Stealing, this year-long series will live on TIME’s YouTube channel, a week-by-week narrative of what turned out to be the signature year of a new nation.
If On This Day…1776 manages to make the American Revolution feel like something that’s actually alive, it’s likely because the project has two things going for it. One is a new technology. The arrival of the U.S.A.’s semiquincentennial coincides with advances in artificial intelligence that leave behind sepia tints and costume drama and let storytellers generate a world that feels vibrant, richly textured, and immediate.
And that immediacy lives not only on the screen. The project also takes its “of-the-moment” feel from the headlines. In the first episode, dated Jan. 1, George Washington, visiting the hillside outside Boston where irregulars hold the high ground above British forces, asks them to shout out where they’re from. (You’ve never heard “Delaware!” proclaimed with more defiant pride.) And in the second installment, Jan. 10, Ben Franklin recruits Thomas Paine to articulate the overarching principles that can unite them. “Here in America,” Common Sense declares, “the law is king.”
In the story of how the United States of America came together for the first time, On This Day…1776 has the cure for what ails us.
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