Rip Van winkle was a character in a short story by the american writer Washington Irving. In the story, Rip lived in a little town in the Hundson Valley,in New York,in the 1770s, around the time of the American Revolution. Rip went out hunting one day, took a nap under a tree, and fell asleep. He woke up 20 years later to find himself a citizen of a brand-new country-the United States of America