Tag: English Revolution
-
The Rising Sun
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Today marks the end of our run through the American Revolution, a revolution that wound up taking more than 25 years to work through, from the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 to the sitting of the First Congress of the United States in 1989. It had…
-
The Critical Period
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. We left off last time with the aborted Newburgh Conspiracy hatched between disgruntled continental officers and disgruntled members of Congress to strongarm the several states into granting the national government more power. But though George Washington smacked the conspiracy down before it even got off the ground, that did not…
-
The Articles of Confederation
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. As I said at the end of last week’s episode, the siege of Yorktown did not have to end the American War of Independence. The British still had forces in Canada and New York, in Charleston and Savannah, and the Navy sailing off the coast of North America and down…
-
Yorktown
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Today we come to the end of the American War of Independence. What had started in the 1760s as a political conflict over the place of the American colonies within the British Empire had turned into a military conflict that was now dragging into its sixth year. During these years,…
-
Tarleton’s Quarter
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Last week, the British turned the focus of the Revolutionary War south, first capturing Savannah, Georgia in 1779, and then taking Charleston, South Carolina in May 1780. After taking these two key ports, the plan was to extend British influence inland and then move like a wave up through North…
-
Turning South
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Okay, so last time we ended with the newly minted British Commander in Chief Henry Clinton, fending off the American attack at Monmouth Courthouse and escaping with his army up to New York City. Just barely unable to prevent this escape, George Washington then led his own forces north, eventually…
-
Valley Forge
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Okay, so I did in fact survive my week with the boy. So we are back. When we left off last time, the Americans had just ‘Burgoyned‘ the British up at Saratoga. Seriously, ‘to Burgoyne someone’ briefly entered the American vocabulary. The British surrender had profound consequences for the course…
-
Saratoga
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. So last week, we dropped off General Washington at Valley Forge, where he would try to hold his army together over the rough winter of 1777-1778. Meanwhile, we will be going back in time to cover the Saratoga campaign of 1777 that did so much to turn the course of…
-
Crossing the Delaware
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. So I want to start this week with a brief note about Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, helpfully provided in the comments by listener T. Scott Johnson. It would appear that a recent book called The Republic in print has pretty effectively debunked the myth that Common Sense reached anywhere near…
-
Independence
Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. OK, so last week saw the official outbreak of war after a decade of political and economic tension and we ended with the cobbled together American army under General Washington, successfully pushing the British, led now by General Howe, out of Boston. There’s a lot to get to today, so…