On April 19th, 240 years ago, some agents of the British government came to confiscate weapons from American colonists. This did not pan out too well for them, as when they approached the rebel weapons stocks, they were fired upon by said rebels. I’m sure Tom Woods can give you a better history lesson, so I won’t spend a great deal of time on that part of this.
In any case, while the American experiment in “limited government” surely spiraled into mankind’s most catastrophic failure to date, the romanticism that surrounds the American Revolution is not entirely unjustified. A relatively small group of people produced some of the most prolific writings about liberty in human history, and fought off an empire that was largely perceived to be invincible. They established a government and a constitution which, however flawed, did lead to a lessening of restrictions which gave us some of the greatest advancements in human knowledge, philosophy, and technology ever.