The American colonists were initially quite content to remain under the rule of the British Crown. Mainly, they just wanted to be left to their own devices. But when a series of British acts levied taxes on the thirteen colonies, the people revolted against unfair taxation without representation. Their pleas were largely ignored and after increasingly hostile acts on both sides, they officially went to war.

On this day, January 20, in 1783, Great Britain signed preliminary articles of peace with America’s allies France and Spain, in the Treaty of Paris, bringing the war a step closer to its end. The treaty defined terms of independence, granting the U.S. the territory of Florida northward to near the Canadian border, and all the way west until the Mississippi river.

The treaty was ratified by the Continental Congress a week before, but only focused on peace between Britain, France and Spain — the signing between America and Great Britain would have to wait until September of that year. Fortunately for the rag-tag American army, they got much-needed military help from the two continental British rivals.