On this date in 1776, rebellious colonials launched the first modern democracy, an experiment in government controlled by the people themselves. America succeeded so well that virtually the entire world later adopted democracy with its guarantee of personal rights.

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Pragmatism is a rejection of the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Instead, pragmatists develop their philosophy around the idea that the function of thought is as a instrument or tool for prediction, action, and problem solving. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics - such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science - are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy.

The Republican Party, also commonly called the GOP (for "Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854, it dominated politics nationally for most of the period from 1860 to 1932. There have been 18 Republican presidents, the first being Abraham Lincoln, serving from 1861 to 1865, and the most recent being Donald Trump who began serving in 2017.

The 1980 New York Mets season was the 19th regular season for the Mets, who played home games at Shea Stadium. Led by manager Joe Torre, the team had a 67-95 record, yielding a 5th place finish in the National League East.

The Vikings were seafaring north Germanic people who raided, traded, explored, and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia, and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries. The Vikings employed wooden longships with wide, shallow-draft hulls, allowing navigation in rough seas or in shallow river waters. The ships could be landed on beaches, and their light weight enabled them to be hauled over portages. These versatile ships allowed the Vikings to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, and as far south as Nekor. This period of Viking expansion, known as the Viking Age, constitutes an important element of the medieval history of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, and the rest of Europe.