The Culper Spy Ring was an American spy network operating during the War of American Independence that provided George Washington with information on British troop movements.
Americans don’t know it and children aren’t taught it, but George Washington is responsible for our Thanksgiving holiday. It was our first president, not the Pilgrims and not Abraham Lincoln, who led the charge to make this day of thanks a truly national event.
In May of 1765, the news of the impending Stamp Act reached Boston. Starting November 1, 1765, all printed documents would be required by law to carry a stamp. Over the course of the summer of 1765, colonists grew increasingly agitated with the idea of the Stamp Act. On August 14, tensions finally reached a boiling point.
One of the earliest and most jaw-droppingly ambitious plans to secure the city for the British came from the mind of Dr. John Connolly. [1] Word of his “plot” spread widely across the colonies in 1775 and came to symbolize the lengths to which Loyalists were willing to go to foil the American Revolution.
The Battle of White Marsh (aka Battle of Edge Hill) was a battle fought in the area surrounding Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania. The battle, which took the form of a series of skirmish actions, was the last major engagement of 1777 between British and American forces.
The name that King George III is said to have called the “most damning name of all” on the Declaration of Independence was not that of Benjamin Franklin, John or Samuel Adams, or even John Hancock. Instead, it was businessman Robert Morris. As the “financier of the revolution,” Morris deserves to be duly recognized for…
Dated January 1787 There is nothing more common than to confound the terms of the American revolution with those of the late American war. The American war is over: but this is far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed. It remains yet…
Author: Peter Kiteridge Date:1806 Annotation: African American soldiers served with valor at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In November 1775, however, Congress decided to exclude blacks from future enlistment out of a sensitivity to the opinion of southern slaveholders. But Lord Dunmore’s promise of freedom to slaves who enlisted in the British…
Annotation: On September 3, 1783–Two years after the Revolutionary War–The United States of America was officially considered a free nation by Great Britain. Delegates from America and Great Britain met in Paris to make it official. In addition to declaring the United States a free state, boundaries were set, and important rights to fish the Grand…
Author: Edmund Pendleton Date:1782 Annotation: Although Americans often treat their history in isolation from other countries’, in fact foreign events have played a shaping role in the American past. After Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Sir Henry Clinton still had 16,000 British troops in New York. But British leaders were fearful that they might lose…
