17posts
In September 1775, America struck Canada from two directions simultaneously. Arnold pushed through the Maine wilderness. Montgomery took fort after fort from the north. And one commander took the food and turned back.
Apr 19, 2026
In August 1775, Washington banned Black men from the Continental Army. Three months later, the British offered freedom to enslaved people who joined their side. Washington reversed course.
Apr 19, 2026
In September 1775, Benedict Arnold led 1,100 men through the Maine wilderness to surprise-attack Quebec. The map was wrong, food ran out, rivers ran backward. Only 350 men survived to stand before the walls of Quebec.
Apr 18, 2026
In August 1775, George Washington received a shocking report: the entire Continental Army had enough gunpowder for just 9 rounds per soldier. If the British had known, the war would have ended that day.
Apr 18, 2026
A month after the colonies sent a peace letter to the king, George III refused to even read it — and declared all the colonies in a state of rebellion. The door to negotiation slammed shut.
Apr 18, 2026
After Bunker Hill, 1,054 of 2,200 British troops were dead or wounded. The reaction from the winning side was stunning. Generals went silent. London shook. This 'victory' began Britain's defeat.
Apr 18, 2026
Joseph Warren was Boston's finest physician and a key leader of the independence movement. Given the rank of general, he chose to fight as a common soldier at Bunker Hill. He was 34 years old.
Apr 18, 2026
On July 3, 1775, George Washington arrived in Cambridge to take command of the Continental Army. What he found was not an army — it was chaos.
Apr 18, 2026
On June 17, 1775, 1,200 colonial militia held off 2,200 British regulars from trenches they had dug overnight. The British eventually won, but lost nearly half their force. A British general wrote: A few more such victories and we are done.
Apr 18, 2026
The shots fired at Lexington ripple south to Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Women organize supply lines, Gage begs London for reinforcements, and Benedict Arnold eyes Fort Ticonderoga.
Apr 18, 2026
Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys — 83 men — captured Fort Ticonderoga without firing a single shot. The 83 cannons they seized would later free Boston.
Apr 18, 2026
It took six weeks for the news of Lexington to cross the Atlantic. George III was furious. Parliament was divided. And on both sides of the ocean, the point of no return was approaching.
Apr 18, 2026
In the spring of 1775, thousands of colonists picked up their muskets and marched toward Boston. They were fighting, but most of them had no desire for independence. They just wanted their rights back.
Apr 18, 2026
On May 10, 1775, delegates gathered in Philadelphia to figure out what to do about a war nobody had planned. Their solution was characteristically contradictory: pledge loyalty to the king while simultaneously raising an army against him.
Apr 18, 2026
On April 19, 1775, a small group of colonial militia faced down a massive British force on Lexington Green. What followed would ignite a revolution and change the course of history forever.
Apr 18, 2026
On the night of April 18, 1775, Boston silversmith Paul Revere rode through the Massachusetts countryside to warn colonial militia that British troops were marching to seize their weapons. His midnight ride triggered a chain reaction that led to the first shots of the American Revolution.
Apr 18, 2026
Fifteen months before the Declaration of Independence, and just five days before the first shot of the Revolution, seventeen men gathered in a Philadelphia tavern to found the world's first formal anti-slavery society. Two of the names on that charter — Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush — would later sign the Declaration.
Apr 14, 2026