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America 250
Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.
Setting out 250 years ago this month, Henry Knox’s “Noble Train” carried 60 tons of desperately needed artillery to help patriots oust British forces from Boston.
See our slideshow for more photographs of the current reenactment of the Knox expedition.
Dickinson played a pivotal role in our Nation’s founding, from the Stamp Act to ratifying the Constitution, but his contributions are largely forgotten by history.
Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted a strong executive, while others feared the American president might become a king.
“Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end,” said one minuteman after the fight.
Editor's Note: Rick Atkinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and winner of the prestigious George Washington Book Prize for The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1
Overshadowed in memory by Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts town of Menotomy saw the most violent and deadly fighting on April 19, 1775.
Editor's Note: Michael Ruderman is an author who frequently lectures on New England history to community groups and historical societies. He earned a degree in history at Harvard College.
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.
Editor’s Note: One of the leading historians of the American Revolution and Founding era, John Ferling is a professor emeritus at the University of West Georgia and the author of two dozen books.
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.
The Percy map is the first record of the first battle of the American Revolution, sketched within hours of the deadly return from Lexington.
American resistance to British authority developed with stunning speed 250 years ago in response to George III’s inflexibility.
Editor’s Note: This is the ninth essay in American Heritage by Joseph J.
At a curious stone tower in Somerville, Massachusetts, panic in 1774 could have sparked a war seven months before Lexington and Concord entered the history books.
John Glover and the men of Marblehead saved the Continental Army several times, and then helped it cross the Delaware to victory at Trenton and Princeton.
Editor’s Note: The author of 13 books, Patrick K. O’Donnell is one of our leading military historians.
Our nation is free because, 250 years ago, brave men and women fought a war to establish the independence of the United States and created a system of government to protect the freedom of its citizens.
In “the cradle of the American Revolution,” loyalists to the Crown faced a harsh choice: live with terrible abuse where they were, or flee to friendlier, but alien regions.
The dumping of tons of tea in protest set the stage for the American Revolution and was a window on the culture and attitudes of the time.
Communities around the U.S. hope that the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary will inspire Americans to appreciate the importance of shared experience and preserving history.
Enlisting an army of alter egos, Adams used the Boston press to make the case for American independence and to orchestrate a burgeoning rebellion.
An estimated 1500 privateering ships played a crucial role in winning the American Revolution, but their contributions are often forgotten.
Editor’s Note: One of today’s finest writers about ships and the sea, Eric Jay Dolin previously contributed “Did Hurricanes Save America?” to American Heritage, which focused on the im
No figure in the Revolutionary era inspired as much affection and reverence as Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette
Editor’s Note: We were disappointed when individuals protesting racial injustice last May spray-painted monuments in Lafayette Park, as we wrote at the time, since the vandalized statues of Lafayette, K
The outcome of the American Revolution may have been affected by catastrophic storms in the deadliest hurricane season in recorded history.
Sixteen historic sites in Boston remind Americans of the events that led to our nation’s birth, from the Boston Massacre to Breed's Hill and the USS Constitution.
Editor's Note: Brent Glass is Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of 50 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S., from which this essay is adapted.
Largely overlooked in histories of the Revolution, the Battle of the Chesapeake is in fact one of the most important naval engagements in history, leading to the American victory at Yorktown.
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown
It is one of the most notorious incidents in American history, and also one of the least understood.
A little after 9:00 p.m. on March 5, 1770, a detachment of British soldiers fired into a crowd of townspeople on King Street in Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The result—the “Boston Massacre”—has echoed through the pages of newspapers, pamphlets, and history books ever since.
America’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.
On April 22, 1775, three days after a British column marched out of Boston and clashed with militiamen at Lexington and Concord, the news—and the cry of Revolution!—reached Danbury, Connecticut, where 18-year-old Stephen Maples Jarvis was working on the family farm.
How tough Henry Knox hauled a train of cannon over wintry trails to help drive the British away from Boston
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