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American Revolution
Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.
“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
This special issue looks at the dramatic and momentous events that occurred 250 years ago this month.
Given the importance of April 19, 1775 in our nation’s history, the editors of American Heritage have produced a special issue dedicated to the events of that day.
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.
Enormous crowds greeted the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution, during his visit to all 24 states nearly 40 years after the war ended.
Editor’s Note: Elizabeth Reese is the author of the recently published book,
We can’t let the home of one of the great heroes of the American Revolution be demolished.
“One of the great truths of history is that no past event was preordained,” wrote David McCullough in American Heritage. “Every battle, election, and revolution could have turned out differently at any point al
The farmhouse of General John Glover, one of the great heroes of the American Revolution, is scheduled to be demolished after July 1, 2024.
Editor’s Note: Nancy L. Schultz is a retired professor and chair of the Swampscott Historical Commission, which is working with other local partners to save the General John Glover Farmhouse.
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.
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
The World Trade Center attack wasn’t the first time New York was brutally assaulted — 225 years before, George Washington watched the city burn from his headquarters in northern Manhattan after painful military defeats.
Editor's note: Karin Abarbanel is the author of several nonfiction books. She grew up in Washington Heights just a few blocks from the Morris-Jumel Mansion.
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
Rush was a visionary writer and reformer, a confidant to John Adams, Washington's surgeon general, and opponent of slavery and prejudice, yet he's not a well-known founding father.
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist Rush: Revolution, M
Ambitious, temperamental, and passionate, George Washington learned the skills in the French and Indian War that laid the groundwork for the great leader that he would become.
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist Young Washington: H
The American War for Independence was part of an international trend -- a new focus on the individual that inspired people to new insights, new proclamations, and new assertions of rights.
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist Revolution Song: A
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
While Arnold is a villain in the eyes of most Americans, he was considered the most brilliant officer on either side of the Revolutionary War. Why would he commit a crime so inexcusable?
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist The Tragedy of Bene
In looking at the restoration of the front parlor, we can learn a lot about the Washington family, life in colonial America, and the art of historic preservation.
It's easy to see why curator Adam Erby gets excited entering the front parlor at Mount Vernon, which was recently reopened to the public after being closed more than a year for renovation.
Built in Dublin in 1778 by a member of the British Parliament who admired George Washington, the vandalized monument stands on an old estate now in ruins.
Patrick Henry adhered to five ideas that drove him and his neighbors first to resist, and then to declare themselves independent of Great Britain.
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.
We can better understand how Washington thought by piecing together clues that have remained hidden in the books he once owned.
Thomas Paine's Common Sense helped Americans "decide upon the propriety of separation,” as George Washington said.
In May 1775, the Reverend Jonathan Boucher, rowing across the Potomac, met George Washington rowing in the other direction on his way to the Continental Congress. The two conversed briefly on the fate of the colonies, and Boucher asked Washington if he supported independence.
It's often portrayed as an orderly conflict between patriots, Tories, and British, but the American Revolution caused much suffering, dislocation, and economic decline, and had major effects on Native Americans and Spanish, French, Dutch, and other colonists worldwide.
Alan Taylor, in his recent American Revolutions: A Continental History, provides an important international context for the War for Independence, a perspective that is too often lacking in general discussions about the conflict.
The battle of Monmouth was pivotal in the struggle for independence, enabling George Washington to change the narrative of the war and eventually solidify his own role in our nation's history.
Unlike Saratoga or Yorktown, the battle of Monmouth was not a clear-cut American victory.