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Independence Park, Philadelphia. This is the building where on 4 July 1776, 33 delegates, headed by John Hancock, signed the Declaration of Independence, stating that the thirteen English colonies of North America are to break away from the English crown. That event marked the birth of the United States of America, the first European-descended country in the New World to be independent (rather than being a European colony).

After years of bloody warfare, the English crown would recognize the independence of its former colonies in 1783, and the United States of America in its current form would take shape in 1789 with the adoption of a novel form of document, known as a constitution, defining how the new country would work. The Constitutional Convention, attended by delegates from the thirteen states to work out the details of the Constitution, also took place in this building.

I am still a teenager at this point in 1993, and Philadelphia, done as a day trip from New York where I was staying with relatives, was my first-ever solo intercity trip. Although I have gone on to visit many other places around the world as a grownup, I would not return to Philadelphia until October 2011.