Revolution 250 Podcast

Best remembered now for the eponymous beer that started the craft brewing industry, Samuel Adams was a great political leader in Massachusetts.  Yet this fervent author of editorial pieces in support of the rights and liberties of the people is little known today.  We learn more thanks to  Ira Stoll, author of Samuel Adams:  A Life. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

The first time the patriots use artillery, the first time they sink a British ship, and the first time officers and men from different colonies stage a joint operation--the battle of Chelsea Creek, in what today are the cities of Chelsea and Revere, and the East Boston neighborhood, along an industrial waterway that still retains much of its 18th-century contour.  We hear from archaeologists Craig...

 Benjamin Carp (Associate Professor and Daniel M. Lyons Chair of History at Brooklyn College) about the Great Fire of New York that occurred September 20 & 21, 1776, the Boston Tea Party and urban life during the Revolution . Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

 Professor Robert Bellinger on the lives and experiences of African Americans in the American Revolution, the presence of free and enslaved persons at Lexington and Concord and the connections between Massachusetts and Middleton Place in South Carolina. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

With over 190,000 members nationwide, the Daughters of the American Revolution have been preserving America's heritage, awarding scholarships and supporting American civics and patriotism for more than 100 years.  Paula Renkas, State Regent for the Massachusetts Daughters of the American Revolution , tells us about their work in education, historic preservation, and fostering patriotism by su...

 Virginia DeJohn Anderson (University of Colorado) eminent scholar of life in Colonial America and most recently the author of The Martyr and the Traitor:  Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution talks with us about these two men from Connecticut, both hanged in the first year of the War--Hale hanged by the British as a spy, Dunbar hanged in Connecticut as a loyalist.  What lead eac...

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786 is both a statement on religious conscience and the concept of the separation of church and state.  A conversation with John Ragosta, author of  Wellspring of Liberty ,   historian at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, which maintains a great database of Jefferson mater...

Christina Proenza Coles new work, AMERICAN FOUNDERS reveals men and women of African descent as key protagonists in the story of American democracy. It chronicles how black people developed and defended New World settlements, undermined slavery, and championed freedom throughout the Americas from the 16th through the 20th century. Join Professor Bob Allison in conversation with the author in a dis...

We talk with Kelly Cobble, Curator at the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, home to four generations of the Adams family.  We hear about Louisa Catherine Adams's harrowing trip across war-torn Europe in 1815, and about the two Adams birthplaces--the John Adams birthplace is the oldest Presidential birthplace in the nation.  What did these four generations of Adamses have in common?  C...

Jack Rakove . Pulitzer-prize winning historian and political scientist from Stanford, joins us for a discussion of  religious freedom, (see his book, Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience) the Continental Congress, (the subject of his first book, The Beginnings of National Politics ),  the Federalist papers, James Madison, John Dickinson and other Revolutionaries.  Tell us what you think! Send us a tex...

He was trained to cure the sick and aid the wounded. He wrote eloquently in the cause of liberty. He organized resistance to tyranny and oppression. He was a political leader admired and respected throughout the colonies. He volunteered to stand in the front lines, and died in the name of freedom, at the Battle of Bunker Hill.  The role of Dr. Joseph Warren in bringing about American Independence...

When the King heard his forces had taken Ticonderoga in August 1777, he thought he had won the war.  What went wrong?  We talk with Kevin Weddle about his new book, The Compleat Victory, about the decisive battle of Saratoga.  How did the British strategy go so badly wrong--and why did the Americans win?  And what did the victory mean?  Kevin Weddle is an historian, but also a graduate of West Poi...

Originally built as Fort Carillon by the French army between 1755 - 1757, Fort Ticonderoga sits at a strategic junction of Lake Champlain, La Chute River, and Lake George.  British forces--including soldiers from Massachusetts--captured it in 1759, and then in May 1775 forces from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and from what is now Vermont took it from the British.  Henry Knox brought sixty tons o...

Historian Mike Bunn tells us about the tumultuous political scene in this borderland colony of West Florida, stretching from the Appalachicola River to the Mississippi, featuring  a host of bold and colorful characters on the fringes of the British and Spanish empires.  Find out more in this episode, and in Mike Bunn's book, The Fourteenth Colony:  The Forgotten Story of the Guf South During...

Nathaniel Philbrick talks about the impact of the American Revolution on American culture and history; the importance of George Washington as a political unifier;  the Battle of Bunker Hill as a seminal event on the road to American Independence;  and  Moby Dick.    Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Now in its 70th year, the 2.5 mile route through historic downtown Boston sees millions of visitors every year. The marked route connects 16 nationally important historic sites in Boston covering three centuries of history. Suzanne Taylor, Executive Director of the Freedom Trail Foundation, and Emily Kovatch, the Trail's Experiences Manager and occasionally Mehitable Dawes, tell us how the Fr...

Why was education such a critical goal of America's revolutionaries?   We talk with Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy about his new book,  The The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind, about Thomas Jefferson's idea of a university.  Andrew O'Shaughnessy teaches at the college Jefferson founed, and he is director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies.  His mos...

Commander John A. Benda, the 76th commanding officer of the USS CONSTITUTION , tells us a bit about the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world,  and its crew of 80 active-duty sailors.  We hear about George Sirian's 50-year naval career, which began when he arrived on the ship orphaned in the Greek war for independence, and about the Pope's visit, and CONSTITUTION's encount...

Dr. John Concannon of the Gaspee Days Committee discusses the 1772 event the "first blow for Liberty" in Rhode Island. Was this a pre-coordinated event, or the passionate response of a seafaring people upon the Royal Customs Commission?  Learn about the plans for the Gaspee Days 2022 - the 250th anniversary of the burning of the HMS Gaspee,  and about where you can learn more about the ...

For 132 years, the Sons of the American Revolution have been promoting patriotism, preserving American history & teaching American history to future generations.  The largest male lineage organization in the United States, consisting of more than 33,000 members over 50 states and several international societes.  A conversation with Joe Gauthier of the Massachusetts Sons of the American Revolut...

 Professor Frank Cogliano (University of Edinburgh) on the life of Thomas Jefferson, his legacy in the study of the American Revolution, his thoughts on diplomacy and why we might think about Jefferson differently today than we did in 1976. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

A conversation with the hilarious British-American comedy duo Nick Afka Thomas and Sarah Ann Masse, who have together formed We are Thomasse, and tell the story of the  "Awkward Exes"   Britain and America as a messy divorce emerging "special relationship."  They have followed this with more episodes and stories, "Real Founding Fathers of America," a series which they...

Why is the Treaty of Paris important?  Why do we know so little about it? Eliga Gould joins us to answer these and other questions.  The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the American War for Independence,  defined the new nation's boundaries (see the John Mitchell Treaty Map ) and had tragic consequences for Native Americans as well as some of the African-Americans and Anglo-Americans who sided wit...

Why do we talk about Phillis Wheatley and the American Revolution?  Vincent Carretta, Professor emeritus  of the University of Maryland, and author of Phillis Wheatley:  Biography of a Genius in Bondage joins us to talk about Wheatley's life, career, and influence.   Professor Caretta has just edited The Writings of Phillis Wheatley , as well as the writings of The Letters of Ignatius Sancho...

 Lauren McCormack, ( Marblehead Museum ), Seamus Daly & Larry Sands (Glover's Regiment) about the lives and legacies of these two important figures in the history of the American Revolution. Jeremiah Lee, a merchant and importer in Marblehead played a lead role in connecting the American colonists with the financial and military resources of Europe.  John Glover and his Marblehead regimen...