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Previously unknown, a map drawn by Lord Percy, the British commander at Lexington, sheds new light on the perilous retreat to Boston 250 years ago this month.

What began as a civil war within the British Empire continued until it became a wider conflict affecting peoples and countries across Europe and North America.

Overshadowed in memory by Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts town of Menotomy saw the most violent and deadly fighting on April 19, 1775.

This special issue looks at the dramatic and momentous events that occurred 250 years ago this month.

“Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end,” said one minuteman after the fight.

Classic Essays from Our Archives

The Treasure From The Carpentry Shop | December 1979, Vol 31, No 1

By David McCullough

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

bridge drawing

Alice Paul: “I Was Arrested, Of Course…” | February 1974, Vol 70, No 3

By Robert S. Gallagher

An interview with the famed suffragette, Alice Paul

alice paul

Growing Up Colored | Summer 2012, Vol 70, No 3

By Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The noted writer and educator tells of his boyhood in the West Virginia town of Piedmont, where African Americans were second-class citizens, but family pride ran deep.

Henry Louis Gates and family

FDR and His Women | March 2003, Vol 54, No 1

By Ellen Feldman

A novelist who has just spent several years studying Eleanor Roosevelt, Lucy Rutherfurd, and Missy LeHand tells a moving story of love: public and private, given and withheld.

fdr and his women

"The Sparck of Rebellion" | Winter 2010, Vol 70, No 3

By Douglas Brinkley

Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.

boston tea party

America: Experiment or Destiny? | June 1977, Vol 28, No 4

By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

We can take pride in our nation, not as we pretend to a commission from God and a sacred destiny, but as we struggle to fulfill our deepest values in an inscrutable world.

american destiny

    Today in History

  • Reagan asks Gorbachev to tear down this wall

    President Ronald Reagan, speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate section of the Berlin Wall, asks that Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev "Tear down this wall!" Reagan spoke at the 750th anniversary of Berlin, which was united as the German capital in 1989. 

  • George Bush born

    41st President George Herbert Walker Bush in born in Milton, Massachusetts. The son of Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush, he volunteered for the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor and became the youngest Naval aviator in American history. Bush later served in the House of Representatives, directed the CIA, and was elected to both the vice presidency and the presidency in the 1980s.

    More »

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