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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…
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Close the window. No, leave the window open. Cold night air can be toxic to one’s health. No, what’s truly toxic is stifled, fetid…
When we picture the Declaration of Independence, most of us immediately think of the document handwritten on parchment and signed at the bottom by…
John Paul Jones has earned enduring fame in American history for his sailing and fighting exploits during the American Revolution. His influence on the…
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There are many myths associated with the American Revolution, and at JAR we do our best to set the record straight on as many…
Josiah Quincy, Jr.’s name is rarely mentioned in history books. This is because his name never appeared at the top of any leaderboard, that…
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George Washington Dealmaker-In-Chief: The Story of How the Father of Our Country Unleashed the Entrepreneurial Spirit in America by Cyrus A. Ansary (Lambert Publications,…
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There were many attempts, before and during the American Revolution, to avoid armed conflict via negotiation, or to stop the war after it began….
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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…