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The year 1780 ended badly, and the new year boded worse for America’s War of Independence. Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold’s treason and defection to…
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Almost forty years ago, I led a team of nautical archaeologists in the study of the steamboat Phoenix, which had burned on Lake Champlain…
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Young Benjamin Franklin: The Birth of Ingenuity by Nick Bunker. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018) This is a tome that, as Gordon S. Wood…
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Catharine Sawbridge was born in Wye, Kent, England to John Sawbridge and Elizabeth Wanley on April 2, 1731. Her father was a landed proprietor;…
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Wars have a way of creating strange alliances, and the American Revolution was no exception. I encountered one such unusual relationship while researching my…
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Revolutions are complex multi-sided economic, political, social, and technological events. They begin as conservative movements. As each side fears losing, all of these different…
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While the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, was on holiday in the summer of 1774, his office continued to receive…
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The Continental Navy. Words that didn’t exactly strike fear into the heart of the mighty British Royal Navy. For most Americans, knowledge of the…
As the Revolutionary War was coming to an end, financial problems came to the forefront: to name a few, the country’s debts to France,…
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Through four months in the summer of 1787, passionate arguments over political principles filled the Pennsylvania State House while hard-nosed political horse-trading buzzed in…
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“Diplomacy is seduction in guise …”, whispered Benjamin Franklin to his fellow commissioner John Adams. “One improves with practice.” Although the quote isn’t real…
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Early one morning in late June 1778, an unknown passerby tossed a package of documents that clanged against the gate at Benjamin Franklin’s home…
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Antoine Félix Wuibert was one of the earliest foreign volunteers to the War of the American Revolution, arriving even before the United States pronounced…
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In the Spring of 1775, Benjamin Franklin, still stationed in England, made what he thought was a last attempt to secure a plan of…
Benjamin Franklin made two missions to London prior to the Revolution; the first from 1757 to 1762, the second from 1764 to 1775. In…
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On May 9, 1751, Benjamin Franklin published a satirical article in the Pennsylvania Gazette commenting on British laws that allowed convicted felons to be…
Thomas Penn, the son of founder William Penn, inherited majority control of the proprietorship of the colony of Pennsylvania in 1746. At the time…
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Benjamin Franklin was appointed an American Commissioner to France on September 26, 1776. [1] One month later he set sail for France where he…
Though not always able to offer definitive evidence of a link between the two men, since the nineteenth century Jewish scholars have affirmed that…
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If there was ever a theme song for Benjamin Franklin, it would definitely be the 1970 Steven Stills folk-rock ditty, “If You Can’t Be…
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If one looked into Benjamin Franklin’s time on Craven Street, they might initially believe he lived at 36 Craven Street the entirety of his…
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Since the dawn of humanity, thunder and lightning have both terrified and awed. Protection was sought from deities like Zeus and Thor; and in…
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When people think about Thomas Jefferson, they think of a founding father, an advocate of liberty, and an American Patriot. But what people don’t…
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New Jersey Governor William Franklin is one of the forgotten major players in the American Revolution. By the fall of 1775, he was the…
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Since 1874 a growing assumption, indeed an assumption expanding to the status of “fact,” has arisen that a document known as “The Sale of…
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Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War diplomatic successes have been well chronicled. He was instrumental in persuading King Louis XVI to enter into a military alliance…
The image of a rattlesnake was used as a symbol of the American colonies from the beginning of the French and Indian War to…
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“The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it,” said the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.[1] Benjamin Franklin…
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Book Review: Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore. Knopf, 464 pp., Hardcover $27.95|Paperback $16.95|eBook $13.99 “One Half…
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Remember when I wrote that nobody ever said life on the Pennsylvania frontier was easy?[1] Well, as it turns out, it was a lot…
The front page of April 18, 1765, Pennsylvania Gazette featured one of the earliest American printings of the Stamp Act. “Printed by B. Franklin,…
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Between his voyages to England and France, Benjamin Franklin logged more transatlantic cruises than any other founder. In fact, in his lifetime, he took…
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Edward Snowden and the NSA documents. Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables. Daniel Elsberg and the Pentagon papers. Benjamin Franklin and the Hutchinson…
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Edward Bancroft habitually worked late into the evenings on Tuesday. This evening he was finishing a letter to his new mistress and arranging a…
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John Paul Jones. A good ship captain and tenacious fighter but an abysmally bad squadron commander and a tireless self-promoter and schemer, who was…
As Benjamin Franklin lay on his deathbed in the spring of 1790, he wrote a farewell letter to George Washington. He congratulated the first…
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It’s a simple question — perhaps so basic that it’s been overlooked. How old were the key participants of the American Revolution? Authors often…
As the struggle between Great Britain and her colonists in the thirteen North American colonies entered a state of armed resistance against British military…
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YouTube is synonymous with Gangnam Style, Giant Double Rainbows and the Evolution of Dance, but not the American Revolution, right? Wrong. When it comes…