(upbeat music) [Narrator] This is one of the most well-known political cartoons in American history, but it predates the American Revolution.

In 1754, the French and Indian War was just beginning.

Faced with the French threat, some colonies planned to meet and address it in Albany, New York.

At the time, the colonies were fragmented with their own forms of government, making a consensus very difficult.

Ahead of the meeting, Benjamin Franklin published a solution in "The Pennsylvania Gazette."

Along with the article was a woodcut that read, "Join, or Die."

With a snake severed in eight pieces, representing the British colonies.

At the meeting, Franklin shared what's known today as The Albany Plan, the first defense plan for British colonial unification ever proposed.

The colonists rejected the proposal, but variations of the "Join, or Die" cartoon would reemerge throughout history.