John Trumbull's 1819 painting depicting the Declaration of Independence being presented to Congress on July 4 1776. US Capitol rotunda/Wikimedia CommonsThis newsletter was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.This weekend marks 250 years since the Second Continental Congress, representing the 13 American colonies, assembled in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence. The country had already been at war for more than a year and would continue its armed struggle against Britain for another seven. But on July 4 1776, the United States of America was born.The ideas that found expression in the Declaration were not new. Tensions between the British crown and its American colonies had been percolating for years. And the philosophical ideas behind America’s revolutionary fervour were also finding expression in Europe, particularly in France and Britain.As Tom Cutterham, a professor of American history at the University of Birmingham, writes, the sort of ideas that inspired America’s revolutionary thinkers had for some years “been closely tied to questions about corruption, oligarchy and executive tyranny in Britain itself”. He points to the likes of Thomas Paine, John Wilkes, Granville Sharp and Catharine Macaulay who were writing passionate arguments against British despotism.Macaulay argued that the authority of a monarch rests on a contract between ruler and ruled which, if broken by the monarch, is void. It’s an idea which is said to have inspired Benjamin Franklin’s contribution to the Declaration of Independence. Cutterham tells the stories of the Britons who supported America’s struggle to throw off its colonial masters. Read more: America at 250: the Britons who supported the War of Independence This weekend’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday comes at a time of deep division in the US. There are even two separate organisations planning rival events. One – America250 – was set up in 2016 by the US congress and signed into law by Barack Obama. The other – Freedom250 – was launched in 2025 by the current president, Donald Trump. The former was specifically established as a bipartisan committee, while its hard to see that latter as anything but a partisan expression of the president’s vision of America.The situation mirrors the debate raging in the US over American history itself, writes Andrea Loux Jarman, an expert in US constitutional law at Bournemouth University. As Jarman notes, early on in Trump’s second presidency, he issued an executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which targeted what the administration likes to call “woke history”. Part of this has involved removing or rewriting information panels in museums which, the order says: “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times)”. Instead educational information should “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people”. Needless to say information in museums and galleries about the horrors of slavery are among the “woke history” on the Trump administration’s target list. It’s a row which is likely to find its way to the Supreme Court before it can be resolved, writes Jarman. Read more: As the United States turns 250 there is bitter rivalry over who gets to tell the country’s story With this ideological struggle in mind, it’s vital that the celebrations do not overlook the huge contribution that African Americans have made to their country’s history, writes Jenny Woodley, a specialist in American history at Nottingham Trent University. Even as the founding fathers were honing the ideas that would overthrow British rule, in 1772 an enslaved woman named Phillis Wheatley published a poem that compared her enslavement to “the iron chain, Which wanton Tyranny with lawless handHad made, and with it meant t’enslave the land”. Nearly two centuries later, in his I Have a Dream speech, Martin Luther King Jr called the Declaration of Independence a “promissory note” that guaranteed all people their inalienable rights. He said the bank of justice was not bankrupt and it was time for all Americans to “cash this check”. Martin Luther King: US constitution was a ‘promissory note to which every American was to fall heir’. But as the US celebrates 250 years since this promissory note was issued, “the ‘bank of justice’ is looking increasingly short of funds”, writes Woodley. She says it’s vital this celebration is one that is shared by all Americans, or – to borrow from the US constitution: “We the people”. Read more: USA at 250: the Black American struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness It’s commonplace to read of American democracy as “an experiment” or a “work in progress”. For many of us, just how fragile that work remains was illustrated by the events of January 6 2021, when a mob stormed the US capital in an attempt to prevent Congress from ratifying the results of the 2020 election, which Trump still insists was fraudulently stolen by his opponents.Happily democracy prevailed that day. But over its 250 years there have a number of occasions when the US has been deeply divided and democracy itself was thought to be imperilled. Historian Sarah Trott, of York St John University, recounts five of the most dangerous moments for the American experiment. Read more: America at 250: five times the US constitution has come under threat Ukraine on the offensiveFor more than four years Ukraine has endured a war of aggression from its much larger neighbour Russia. And, despite the Russian expectation that Ukraine would capitulate in less than a week after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has so far proved resilient in the face of whatever Russia has thrown at it.And in recent weeks the mood music coming out of both Moscow and Kyiv has changed significantly. Mounting Russian casualties, shortages of food and fuel and an apparent deadlock on the frontlines are taking their toll on Russian morale.Meanwhile the success of Ukraine’s drone warfare and its ability to strike at targets deep inside Russia have enabled it to chalk up some important successes. This is especially the case in Crimea, writes Jennifer Mathers, who explains why the peninsula, often referred to as the “jewel in the crown” of Putin’s vision for a pacified Ukraine, is of such significance in this war. Read more: State of emergency in Crimea as Ukraine focuses pressure on ‘jewel in Putin’s crown’ But four years of war have taken a huge toll on civilian life in Ukraine, especially for those families who have been divided by the conflict. Irina Kuznetsova, who researches the impacts of displacement for people in Ukraine’s war-torn regions, details the obstacles faced by separated Ukrainian families. Read more: Ukrainian families have been torn apart by the war – reunifying them is no easy task Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.