The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which announced their independence from Great Britain and their creation of a cooperative union. The disobedient states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence. The Philadelphia Convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its approval the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, making up ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many basic civil rights and freedoms, was approved in 1791.