The Fourth of July is right around the corner, and while it's widely encouraged to be up to date on your American history before celebrating like a true American (i.e., with gratuitous amounts of booze and fireworks), who wants to spend their time mulling over dusty old textbooks when they could be out partying? Fret not, star-spangled readers -- the GamePro editors have thrown together this handy graphical timeline of (streamlined) American history dating back to the Declaration of Independence, and spanning up to the 2008 presidential election.