Viking, I had been wondering why I automatically thought 1776, and you automatically though 1783 when talking about the independence of America.
Even when I wrote that above, I didn't get it:)
But I do now.
We Americans recognize the declaration of our independence (1776) as the time our independence began.
The rest of the world didn't acknowledge or recognize the independence until the Treaty of Paris ~ at the end of the revolutionary war ~ 1783.
And I'm sure that's how each of us teaches our next generation: we teach ours that we became an independant nation 1776; everyone else teaches their next generations that America gained it's independence only after the war, and use the 1783 date.