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It is widely acknowledged that the military alliance between the United States and France, established in 1778, was responsible not only for a number…
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews best-selling author and historian Nancy Rubin Stuart on what made Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read’s marriage one…
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She was neither beautiful nor wealthy. Nor was Benjamin Franklin’s wife educated or intellectual. Nevertheless in 1724 he proposed to Deborah Read while renting…
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Mit Complimenten Aweissen (put him off with compliments) Arthur Lee, one of the American Commissioners stationed in Paris, was appointed minister to the Prussian Court…
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Upon the death of his grandfather on May 31, 1740, Frederick William II of the House of Hohenzollern became the King of Prussia. Over…
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There are many, many founding fathers in the story of America’s Revolution and unfortunately only a few are really known to the general public….
Benjamin Franklin was a man of many talents and titles. He was a printer, writer, scientist, inventor, politician, diplomat, and philosopher, among other things….
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William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, was the last Royal Governor of New Jersey, from 1763 to 1776. He is usually identified in U….
On July 25, 1768, Benjamin Franklin set his friend, Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, straight. Dumas, a man of letters who would later serve as an American…
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Silence Dogood, Anthony Afterwit, Fanny Mournful, Caelia Shortface. Dickens’ characters? No. They’re just a few of the many evocative pen names Benjamin Franklin used…
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In the second half of the 1700s, French natural historian Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, formulated what would be dubbed the “New World degeneracy”…
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Late in September 1774 the Continental Congress was in the middle of an ongoing debate on the means that should be implemented to restore…
The increasingly turbulent years preceding the American Revolution were fueled by an exchange of laws promulgated by Great Britain to maintain political and economic…
In the early years of the nineteenth century, the founders of the new American Republic were lurching forward from the shockingly successful outcome of…
BOOK REVIEW: The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain’s Wars for America by Julie Flavell (Liveright, 2021) In…
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Speaking on Independence Day, 1821, John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the Unites States and the son of John Adams, a signer of the…
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The scribe of the Declaration of Independence—and perhaps the first man to read it in public—was born on March 28, 1736 in Haddonfield, New…
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We asked our contributors: Which personality of the American Revolution or the founding era (other than Benedict Arnold) is remembered for the wrong reasons,…
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On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor and historical interpreter Jack Campbell on the Marquis de Lafayette’s fascinating attempt to garner…
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Marie Jean Paul Joseph Roche Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, the famous Frenchman who became an American general, had a pet project…
The Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 awoke Americans to the fact that import duties for the purpose of revenue were taxes just as much…
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France was defeated in the Seven Years War. The defeat resulted in France losing valuable colonies, and prestige and influence in Europe. Desperate to…
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The letters of Caroline Howe in the British Library have for the first time revealed the private life of her brother, Adm. Richard Lord…
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews researcher and JAR contributor Richard J. Werther on King Gustav III of Sweden’s recognition of an…
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New York City, November 16, 1783. It was finally here, Evacuation Day. The British, who had occupied Manhattan for seven long years, were finally…
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This month we asked our contributors: If George Washington had not run for President in 1789, who would you like to have had as…
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Although it may not have been fatal, scabies brought more patients to British Army hospitals during the Seven Years’ War than any other condition,…
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Aside from being outmanned by the best army in the world when the American Revolution started, it was clear that the American forces were…
Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward J. Larson (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2020) George Washington and Early Republic scholar Edward J….
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The participation of the French on the side of the newly declared independent American colonies is widely acknowledged as the factor that tipped the…
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The efforts of the American Provincial Congress at the beginning of the revolutionary war against Great Britain offer the perfect case study to understand…
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“Unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place,” Gen. George Washington wrote from Valley Forge on December 23, 1777,[1] to Henry Laurens, the…
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Author’s Note: Selections from all resolutions and working drafts are italicized. Most of what we know about the framers’ discussions comes from James Madison’s…
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The Rise of Thomas Paine and the Case of the Officers of Excise by Paul Myles (Lewes: The Thomas Paine Society UK, 2018) When John…
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In 1984, Ross Perot purchased a copy of the 1297 reissuance of the Magna Carta from the Brudenell family who had held the document…
In the chaos of war, there are, and have always been, schemers who will try to take advantage of disorder to enrich themselves, either…
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In 1793, a widely circulated American editorial observed, “A few years ago, to say of any man that he was ‘a friend to toleration,’…
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Put yourself, in your mind’s eye, back in June 1776, specifically, the period between June 7 and July 1. It is precisely at that…
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and historian J. L. Bell on the Declaration of Independence and which stories surrounding the document…