join, or die (10. 727)

Attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the political cartoon depicting the British colonies of North America as a severed snake—eight parts for the thirteen traditional entities with New England as the head being lumped into one region, Delaware then part of Pennsylvania and omitting Georgia completely (do some homework)—appeared for the first time on this day in 1754 in the Pennsylvania Gazette accompanying Franklin’s editorial on the “disunited states” and appeals for cooperation during the French and Indian War (an extension of the Seven Years’ War) by settlers looking to expand into Appalachia and then reprinted and propagandised later as a slogan for those opposed to the rule of the Crown, culminating in war for independence, aggravated in part due to the movement by the British to outlaw slavery and demands that the colonists countenance territorial treaties struck with the native population, with the separate militias forming what was planned as a temporary alliance against the monarchy.