Congress Establishes the Continental Congress

On a humid June day in 1775, as tensions between the American colonies and Great Britain boiled over into violence, the Second Continental Congress convened inPhiladelphia. Their task was urgent and unprecedented: how could thirteen disparate colonies, each with its own interests and militia traditions, unite to resist the might of the British Empire? The answer came on June 14, 1775, when the delegates voted to establish the Continental Army.