turn on a radio in the united kingdom right now and theres a good chance youll hear the catchy but mournful tones of english artist kate bushs 1985 hit running up that hill which recently topped the uk singles chart more than 30 years after the tracks initial release thanks to its use in the latest season of the american tv show stranger things the songs resurgent popularity on both sides of the pond is just the latest reminder that while the us may have declared its independence from great britain 246 years ago today the two nations have managed to stay remarkably close not only culturally but economically and strategically too says texas a&m university history professor troy bickham according to bickham who specializes in early american history and the history of the british empire its largely a history of shared interests values and language that created the close bond between the countries today from revolution to resolution by the time the declaration of independence was signed in philadelphia the writing was already on the wall for britains relationship with its north american colonies bickham said news of growing resistance across the atlantic widely circulated in the british press for more than a decade and by 1775 king george iii had officially declared the colonies to be in a state of revolt by the time the declaration reached his desk he was already mobilizing troops for an assault on new york though the resulting war is often viewed as a conflict between the americans and the british thats not exactly how people understood it at the time according to bickham early on it was widely understood not as a revolutionary war but as a kind of civil war within the british empire the termamerican to describe americans was only then emerging to apply to people who were not indigenous bickham said george washington would have described himself as an englishman as would benjamin franklin and everyone else what they were disagreeing over was what it meant to be an englishman back in britain large swaths of the population were sympathetic to the rebelling colonists cause and the idea of waging war on them made many uneasy high-ranking military officers resigned in protest and others complained loudly in the press and in the house of commons it was a huge issue it was divisive bickham said until the 1930s the largest peace petitioning movement in british history was to stop the war with the colonies … one newspaper refused to distinguish between the british and american dead sayingtheyre all sons of britain arguments against the war were often framed in terms of practical and economic concerns partly because voicing full-throated support for american independence would be grounds for treason bickham said and as the war dragged on and became an increasingly costly endeavor those arguments only got more persuasive they would say practically this doesnt make sense we should be trading not killing bickham said eventually a bill came up for funding for the war for the next year and parliament said you know what this is too expensive were not winning were done as british forces pulled out governors and other colonial officials were ousted from the new united states and many others who had been loyal to the crown left voluntarily bickham said however the former loyalists who chose to stay found that they were largely allowed to live their lives and go about their business undisturbed in 1785 just two years after winning its independence the us opened up formal diplomatic relations with britain sending john adams across the atlantic for an audience with king george adams leaves that meeting having come to the conclusion that to some extent the united states and britain have a lot of cultural similarities that allow them to do business bickham said ultimately bickham said it didnt take long for any lingering animosity between britain and the us to subside in favor of a mutually beneficial economic partnership after all britain still had a tremendous need for american agricultural products and its former colonists were more than happy to provide them for the right price similarly since the us was still largely an agrarian society americans relied heavily on the more industrialized britain for products they couldnt produce themselves the united states is britains largest overseas market for goods before the revolution and it is so after the revolution that doesnt change until well into the 19th century bickham said a lot of the cotton from the south is milled in britain so they are very much tied to each other america on the rise one major disruption to this harmonious financial arrangement was the war of 1812 which was sparked in part by british efforts to curtail american trade with france during the napoleonic wars wary of british attempts to reassert power american political leaders pushed back hard when tensions eventually boiled over the us and britain were at war again though not for long this time they fought a small war that lasted a couple of years and not much came out of that except that the british recognized at the end of the war that the united states would be the preeminent power in north america bickham said the british kind of cut their losses kept what became canada but essentially recognized that the us is going to do their own thing and its easier to make friends with them rather than fight them as the decades went on the two nations maintained strong economic ties as well as a high degree of social and cultural cooperation bickham said abolitionists and members of various religious movements often corresponded with their counterparts across the atlantic and british literature remained a favorite of american readers there was a substantial amount of social mixing too bickham said certainly the american elite still looked to the british for legitimacy and so on further into the 19th century ties would continue to strengthen between the american and british upper classes as daughters of increasingly wealthy american elites would marry into noble but less-well-off british families creating a union of social status and financial resources that suited both families goals winston churchills mother is american the vanderbilts married into the aristocracy as well so there was a lot of connection that way bickham said the world wars andthe special relationship later on in the 20th century it would be churchill himself who described the us and britains growing bond as a special relationship though that relationship wouldnt come to bloom until the second world war bickham said the seeds were planted during world war i when the war broke out in europe in 1914 there was some question as to which side the us would end up on if it chose to enter the fray german-americans represented a larger portion of the us population than any other ethnic group at that time but the us and britains common language helped turn american sympathies toward the entente powers the advantage the british have over the germans is that british propaganda doesnt have to be translated bickham said after entering the war and helping britain and its allies secure victory the us returned to a more isolationist stance for a time even into the initial years of wwii but ultimately the us would turn out to support its mother nation once again supplying the uk with massive shipments of military supplies before eventually mobilizing its own troops to fight side-by-side with british and other allied forces thats when the special relationship a term first used by churchill in a speech in 1946 really began to crystallize bickham said certainly in the wake of the second world war it gets very much cemented as the british and americans work together to rebuild europe as western democracies and to thwart the soviet union and communism together during the cold war he said through it all the british and american people maintain their strong cultural affinity as popular music books movies and television shows from one nation are easily exported to the other in fact it was during the cold war that running up that hill was first released and found its way to american shores as bickham notes that the song has now made its way back across the atlantic almost 40 years later by way of a hit american tv show is just another example of the enduing connection between the two nations # # # # # # # # # # originally published here by texas a&m today