When John GORDON was born on 2 December 1746, in Dailly, Ayrshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, John Gordon, was 18 and his mother, Christian Lawson, was 23.
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Thomas Jefferson's American Declaration of Independence endorsed by Congress. Colonies declare independence.
"At the end of the Second Continental Congress the 13 colonies came together to petition independence from King George III. With no opposing votes, the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ready for all delegates to sign on the Fourth of July 1776. While many think the Declaration was to tell the King that they were becoming independent, its true purpose was to be a formal explanation of why the Congress voted together to declare their independence from Britain. The Declaration also is home to one of the best-known sentences in the English language, stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."""
Serving the newly created United States of America as the first constitution, the Articles of Confederation were an agreement among the 13 original states preserving the independence and sovereignty of the states. But with a limited central government, the Constitutional Convention came together to replace the Articles of Confederation with a more established Constitution and central government on where the states can be represented and voice their concerns and comments to build up the nation.
Scottish: habitational name from Gordon in Berwickshire, named with Welsh gor ‘spacious’ + din ‘fort’.
English (of Norman origin): habitational name from Gourdon in Saône-et-Loire, so called from the Gallo-Roman personal name Gordus + the locative suffix -o, -ōnis.
English (of Norman origin): alternatively, said to be a nickname from a diminutive of Old French gourd ‘heavy, dull, sluggish’ (compare 8 below).
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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