Revolution 250 Podcast

Digging in his Jersey City backyard in 2007, Chris Bray uncovered a 12-pound iron sphere. This was a mystery. What was it? How did it get there? Doing more digging in archives, he found that his neighborhood was the site of the Paulus Hook fort the rebels held in the summer of 1776, and the iron ball had been fired from a British cannon as the Royal Navy stormed up the Hudson River. The cannonball now sits in the City Hall in Jersey City, next to Frank Hague's de...

John Lowe of the University of Louisville joins us to talk about his new book, “Benevolence & Bondage”: Jonathan Edwards, Slavery, Race, and the Paradox of Spiritual Equality. Jonathan Edwards is remembered as one of colonial America’s most influential theologians—a preacher who taught that all souls stood equally before God. Yet Edwards was also an enslaver who lived and preached within a society shaped by racial bondage. Lowe examines the profound tension between Edwards’s theolog...

The Declaration of Independence is the United States' most radical idea, and its most enduring paradox. Byron Williams, renowned public intellectual, theologian, columnist, explores this paradox in his new book, Liberty and Equality in America: Examining the Radical and Paradoxical Legacy of the Declaration of Independence. Williams asks: What does it mean for a nation officially committed to liberty and equality, while unofficially hamstrung by paradox to achieve its centra...

For a century after Independence, Americans believed that their Revolution was still in progress. Nowhere was this clearer than on the Fourth of July, when Americans gathered for speeches that, as one orator put it in 1834, aimed to “examine the present, and to look forward to the future.” Nathan Perl-Rosenthal joins us to talk about this exploration, which he covers in his new book The Long Revolution: Creating a United States after 1776,, which mines thousands of Independence Day orat...

When in 1774 General Thomas Gage arrived in the rebellious colony of Massachusetts, he brought with him the Massachusetts Government Act which moved the colonial government from Boston to Salem. General Gage set up residence in the neighboring town of Danvers at the home of Robert Hooper, a noted merchant and royalist. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Bill Kossowan as they discuss the attempt to run the colonial government from Essex County in 1774. Tell us what ...

The American Revolution was fought on famous battlefields, but it was sustained in communities like Hingham, Massachusetts, where ordinary people faced extraordinary choices. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian and author James Conroy to discuss his book Hingham in the Revolution; Not the Gift of Kings. Together, they explore how one New England town experienced the coming of independence, from political divisions and military service to ...

The American Revolution was argued in meetinghouses, fought on battlefields, and plotted over more than a few bowls of punch. This week Professor Robert Allison raises a glass with historian Brooke Barbier, author of Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution, to explore the surprisingly boozy world of Revolutionary America. Rum, cider, beer, punch, flip, and other potent concoctions lubricated a society where taverns doubled as newsrooms, political clubs, business c...

The Battle of Bunker Hill was one of the defining moments of the American Revolution. Although the British claimed the battlefield, the staggering cost of victory demonstrated that defeating the colonial rebellion would be far more difficult than anyone had expected. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert Allison is joined by historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt to discuss their new book, A Dear-Bought Victory. Together they explore the Battle of Bunker...

James Wilson was a brilliant Philadelphia lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a driving force behind the Constitution. And yet in 1779 a Philadelphia mob attacked his home, and his forceful defense of ratifying the Constitution led to him being burned in effigy. An Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Wilson died in a North Carolina boarding house on the run from his many creditors. Jesse Wegman recounts Wilson's fascinating and complicated life in his ...

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a man about Paris—watch-maker, inventor, and playwright best known for light comedies like "The Marriage of Figaro." But as the Americans struggled to secure independence, he took on a greater role, managing to ship arms and supplies to the rebels despite French neutrality and the British fleet. Harlow Giles Unger brought Beaumarchais's story back to life in Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais, the French Playwrigh...

As Mercy Otis Warren in her "Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution" reminds us, not all of the battlefields of the American Revolution were in America. Although the conflict began in Massachusetts, it soon spread across the globe, with armies and navies fighting in North America, the Caribbean, Europe, India, Africa, and Central America. The struggle for American independence became part of a worldwide contest among the great powers, one whose outcome would reshape the mo...

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These fundamental truths shape American identity. Ted Widmer explores their origins and impact in The Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text¸ and joins us to talk about the Declaration as it was written, and how it has impacted Americans and the world since ...

Before the ink was dry, the Declaration was already on its way to the people. In this special Independence Day episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, recorded for America's 250th Birthday on July 4, 2026, Professor Robert Allison welcomes master printer Gary Gregory of the historic Edes & Gill Print Shop to explore how the words that founded a nation were transformed into printed broadsides and carried into towns across Massachusetts. Their conversation centers on the remarkable story of...

Why did the British place so much importance on Charleston? How did a string of talented British commanders nearly crush the Revolution in the South, and why did they ultimately fail? In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert J. Allison is joined by historian Ken Scarlett, author of Victory Day: Winning American Independence, for a sweeping discussion of the Southern Campaigns that ultimately decided the outcome of the Revolutionary War. Beginning with the British...

The American Revolution was not fought on distant battlefields, but in private homes. British occupation produced an aggrieved American population, bound by shared domestic disorder and emotional distress. British officers usurped male authority to quarter themselves with families, patriot wives governed households in their husbands' absence, daughters flirted with officers, domestic servants disappeared with soldiers, and enslaved kin absconded to British lines in pursuit of freedom. L...

In his new book This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America’s Revolutionary War in the South, Alan Pell Crawford brings to life the three years between Monmouth and Yorktown. A brutal war in the South—a true civil war—set the stage for the victory at Yorktown, and here, Crawford argues, the War for Independence was won. What happened between 1778 and 1781 as the war shifted to the southern theater? Who were the “unsung patriots” that inevitably set the stage for Yo...

Renowned music historian and composer Roger Lee Hall takes us on a lively exploration of the music of the American Revolution. Far from being mere background entertainment, music in the Revolutionary era carried political messages, inspired soldiers, unified communities, and gave voice to both patriot fervor and loyalist resistance. From tavern ballads and marching tunes to hymns, broadsides, and satirical songs, Hall uncovers the soundtrack of rebellion that echoed through camps, meeting hou...

Yorktown was not the end! Though Cornwallis surrendered, the British still held New York, Charleston, and Savannah, and the Americans did not control the western frontier. Would 1782 bring a renewed British campaign to secure the American colonies? Could the United States win its independence? Military historian Craig Bruce Smith, professor of history at National Defense University, joins us to talk about his new book, Securing Victory, 1781-1783, part of The U....

The United States is not a nation like other nations, and it never has been. In July 1776, thirteen separate states, home to three million people with no common ancestry or identity, stretching along a narrow coastal strip between the Atlantic and the Appalachians, declared their independence as the United States. Could they form a common identity and survive? Today, with more than 350 million people drawn from all over the world, spanning the North American continent, we ask even...

Animals were critical to the War for Independence, both as livestock to feed the armies and navies, and as draft animals to pull cannon and provisions. Dogs and other animals served as mascots and companions, and insects spread diseases that upset the most careful military plans. While historians have looked at problems of supply and transportation for the armies at war, none has looked at the impact of animals on the War, or the War on animals. David Hsuing, an environmental hist...

Mary Dalley's boarding house in Philadelphia is where history happened! In the early days of the Revoluiton it was called "Liberty Hall," and after 1787 it was "Constitution House." Gouverneur Morris lived here, had his law office here, and probably wrote the Constitution at Miss Dalley's Boarding House. Gathered around Miss Dalley's table at different times were fifteen signers of the Declaration of Independence, 12 signers of the Constitution, future governors, legislators, the ...

Linda Thorsen and Tom Coots take us to Malden, whose Town Meeting on May 27, 1776 unanimously supported independence. The Malden Instructions boldly announced the town's support for independence from Great Britain—weeks before the Continental Congress would adopt the Declaration of Independence. Thorsen and Coots examine the political climate, local leadership, and community resolve that produced one of the earliest formal calls for independence. The Malden Resolves re...

The Declaration of Independence created a new nation, and has guided the United States ever since. Historian Steven Sarson argues in his new book, The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States that the Declaration looks backward, to British history and Biblical and Classical history, as much as forward. Sarson looks at the structure of the Declaration’s arguments, about “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” a...

Janie Nitze and Justice Neil Gorsuch have written a book for young readers, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, bringing to life the individuals—famous and overlooked—who shaped one of the most consequential documents in world history. The book delves into the personalities, debates, and risks that defined the summer of 1776, revealing the Declaration not simply as a statement of ideals, but as a bold act of defiance undertaken by real people facing...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Michael Gabriel to explore the life and legacy of one of the American Revolution’s earliest fallen heroes. Drawing on his new book, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero, Gabriel traces Montgomery’s remarkable journey from Irish-born officer in the British Army to a committed leader in the Continental cause. Together, Allison and Gabriel examine Montgomery’s transf...

Jeff Denman talks about his book Philadelphia Quakers and the American Revolution. How did a community rooted in pacifism navigate a moment defined by war, rebellion, and political upheaval? Philadelphia’s Quakers— committed to principles of nonviolence, religious conviction, and civic order—found themselves caught in the crosscurrents of revolution, where neutrality itself could be seen as disloyalty. Denman unpacks the difficult choices Quakers faced as the imperial crisis deepened into o...

Genealogists David Allen Lambert and Melanie McComb of American Ancestors talk about how family history reshapes our understanding of the American Revolution. Drawing on the vast collections and scholarship of one of the nation’s oldest genealogical institutions, Lambert and McComb explore how military records, pension files, and local archives reveal stories far beyond famous names—illuminating the lives of women, immigrants, and Patriots of color whose contributions sustained the Revolution...

Most revolutions end in failure. If they succeed in toppling the bad old regime, they often create a new one that is worse. "Like Saturn," a French journalist observed in the early 1790s, "the Revolution devours its children." Why was the American Revolution different? Legal scholar and political analyst Jonathan Turley explores this question in his new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. How did the Americans avoi...

On this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Captain B.J. Armstrong, a 27-year officer in the United States Navy, Associate Professor of War Studies and Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Director of the Naval Academy Museum. BJ Armstrong's books include Small Boats and Daring Men, about irregular warfare in the Revolution. HIs regular series of blog-posts, "The Maddest Idea," explores the development of the Continental and the U...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert J. Allison welcomes Richard Howell of the Nathanael Greene Homestead for a conversation about the life and legacy of one of the most remarkable commanders of the American Revolution, Nathanael Greene. Born into a Rhode Island Quaker family and raised as an ironmaster, Greene’s path to military leadership was anything but ordinary. Yet he would rise to become one of George Washington’s most trusted generals, playing a decisive role in ...

Why did an antislavery movement emerge at the time of the American Revolution, both in the American colonies and in Britain? Christopher Brown asks this question and many more in Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. The American Revolution on both sides of the Atlantic brought together strands of thought and feeling which had been latent, as men and women grappled with questions of power and justice. Abolition was one way for Britons to restore their moral cap...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison welcomes historian and author Ryan Cole for a sweeping conversation about memory, gratitude, and the young republic’s most celebrated guest. Cole, author of Light Horse Harry Lee and his new work The Adieu explores the extraordinary 1824–1825 return tour of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. Nearly fifty years after the shots at Lexington and Concord, Lafayette’s journey across all twenty-four states became a rolling nat...

. Why did Philadelphia matter so deeply to both the British and the Continental Army? How did strategy, logistics, and personalities shape the campaign that culminated in Brandywine, Germantown, and the winter at Valley Forge? And what did the occupation of the revolutionary capital mean for civilians caught between armies? Michael C. Harris tells this story in his new book, Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley ...

Who was Thomas Jefferson? Do we really need another book about him? Andrew Burstein has written other books on Jefferson, and his new book, Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait answers both questions with depth and grace. Jefferson was an extraordinarily interesting person, and Burstein navigates his ambition, friendships, rivalries, political controversies, and intellectual inquiries. Biography, Burstein shows, is not just storytelling but interpreta...

On today’s episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison charts a course across storm-tossed legal waters with historian Suzanne Amy Foxley, author of The American Experience of British Prize Law, 1776–1804. From the decks of daring privateers to the hushed chambers of admiralty courts, Foxley reveals how the American Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with writs, warrants, and meticulously argued cases. Together, they explore how captured ships...

Lights, camera, Revolution! In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Bob Allison sits down with acclaimed filmmaker Kirk Ellis to explore the alchemy that turns ink on a page into images that linger in the national memory. Ellis, the creative force behind the celebrated screen portrayals of Benjamin Franklin (2024) and John Adams (2008), pulls back the curtain on shaping complex founders into compelling, human characters. From distilling intricate historical texts into sh...

Manufacturing Independence: Forging a Nation in the Crucible of War What did it really take to turn rebellion into a revolution—and ideals into a functioning nation? In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Professor Robert Smith of the Valley Forge Military College, author of Manufacturing Independence: Industrial Innovation in the American Revolution, for a sweeping conversation about the workshops, foundries, supply lines, and human ingenu...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Robert Allison of Suffolk University speaks with Independent Historian Bob Hyldburg, who is leading the effort to erect a public statue honoring Sarah Bradlee Fulton in Medford. Sarah Bradlee Fulton emerges as a figure woven through some of the most dramatic moments of the Revolution in Massachusetts. She took part in the Boston Tea Party, helping disguise and equip the participants who struck a symbolic blow against imperial authority. In t...

Few figures of the American Revolution wielded words as powerfully as Thomas Paine. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by historian and journalist Jack Kelly, author of Tom Paine’s War, for a wide-ranging conversation about Paine’s outsized influence on the Revolutionary cause. Kelly explores how Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense transformed colonial resistance into a popular movement for independence, reaching audiences far beyond elite politic...

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis joins host Professor Robert Allison to talk about his new book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic side of the American Founding. Drawing on decades of scholarship, Ellis reflects on the ideas, personalities, and hard choices that shaped independence and the early republic. Together, Allison and Ellis explore what made the Revolution truly revolutionary, how figures like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, whose stories Ellis has ...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by Reese Holmes, National President of the Children of the American Revolution, for a lively conversation about one of the nation’s oldest and most forward-looking patriotic youth organizations. Together, they explore the origins of the Children of the American Revolution, founded in 1895 by Concord author Harriet Lothrop to foster knowledge of America’s founding ideals among young people, and the organizat...

In this episode, our host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian and educator Sean Heuvel, Director of Graduate and Professional Enrollment at Christopher Newport University, for a spirited exploration of the newly edited Revolutionary War Memoirs of General William Heath. Together they stroll through Heath’s vivid accounts of the Siege of Boston, the New York campaign, the intrigues of command, and the quiet burdens shouldered by a Massachusetts gentleman-general whose pen was often as ...

Join host Professor Robert Allison for a dynamic conversation with historian Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom and Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution. Together they explore how the American Revolution unfolded within a vibrant and contested Atlantic world shaped by Black leadership, Caribbean revolutions, and international diplomacy. Johnson, who holds the the Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn Chair of History at Baylor University, hig...

Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Paul D. Lockhart to discuss Lockhart’s acclaimed book The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Together they explore the remarkable life and career of Baron de Steuben, the Prussian-born officer whose training, discipline, and organizational genius helped transform Washington’s ragged Continental Army into a professional fighting force. Lockhart places Steuben in a broader European military and ...

In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison welcomes historian Dr. Cynthia Hatch for a timely and eye-opening conversation about her forthcoming book, Enablers of Rebellion: The Colonial Court and the Road to the American Revolution, to be published by Savas Beatie in the spring of 2026. Hatch reveals a dimension of the Revolution that is often overlooked: the pivotal role of colonial courts, local magistrates, sheriffs, and justices of the peace in the decade...

This week t Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Matthew Keagle, Curator at Fort Ticonderoga, for a vivid exploration of one of the most audacious logistical feats of the American Revolution: Henry Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery. Together they trace Knox’s remarkable mid-winter journey of 1775–1776—300 miles across frozen rivers and lakes, treacherous terrain, and sometimes snow-choked roads—to deliver more than 60 tons of captured British artillery to General George Washington. He al...

In The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, historian Richard Bell explores how the struggle for American independence reverberated far beyond the thirteen colonies—reshaping politics, empires, and ideas of liberty around the globe. Bell reveals how revolutionaries from Boston to Bengal, Paris to Port-au-Prince, drew inspiration and warning from the events of 1776. The American Revolution became a test case for freedom in an age of empire. Looking at the stories of individuals caugh...

Host Professor Robert Allison welcomes Dr. Kathryn P. Viens, public historian and scholar, to explore how local histories have shaped Americans’ understanding of patriotism and the Revolution from the nineteenth century to today. Drawing from her essay “Mobs or the Martial Ideal? The Mutable Definition of Patriotism in Local Historical Narratives,” published in the online journal Remembering the American Revolution at 250, Viens discusses how community-based histories—often written by ninetee...

In listening to James Otis, Jr.'s arguments against the Writs of Assistance in 1761, John Adams remarked that it was there that American Independence was born. There is no question of Otis' erudition or passion for liberty, but while he fought for the rights of his country, he was also fighting a personal battle for his mental health. We talk with Gerald Holland, aurhor of a new biography of Otis, Lucy Pollock, Kate LaPine, and Paul Piwko as they discuss the new online...

What does it cost to stay loyal when a world is breaking apart? Historian Greg Brooking explores the life and legacy of Sir James Wright, Georgia’s last royal governor, and the turbulent path from Crown colony to revolutionary state in his new book, From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia. In this conversation he digs into loyalty and dissent, political power and personal risk, and how events in the southern colonies reshaped the course of t...

Emily Sneff, author of When the Declaration of Independence Was News explores how the Declaration spread across the colonies and the wider world—not as a sacred founding text, but as breaking news. Her book traces how printers, sailors, and town criers turned Congress’s resolution into headlines that shaped the very idea of independence. Historian of the Declaration of Independence, Emily Sneff is of the curators of the new exhibit, "Declaration's Journey, at the Museum of the Am...

Join host Professor Robert Allison as he speaks with historian and author Edward Andrews about his new book, Newport Gardner’s Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Revolutionary America. Together, they explore the remarkable life of Newport Gardner—born Occramer Marycoo in Africa, enslaved in Newport, and later freed to become a composer, community leader, and founder of one of America’s first Black churches. This story is a powerful look at how music, faith, and freedom inte...

Donna Curtin, Executive Director of Pilgrim Hall Museum, the oldest continuously operating public museum in America, tells us about the surprising links between Plymouth’s Pilgrims and the Revolution. They spotlight the bold voices of James and Mercy Otis Warren, and explore Pilgrim Hall’s Revolutionary collections that connect 17th-century ideals to the fight for independence. On October 11, they are hosting a performance of "Revolutionary Voices: Plymouth Debates Liberty & L...

We are just months away from the 250th Anniversary of Henry Knox's Noble Train. Join Professor Robert Allison in conversation with Revolution 250 Executive Director Jonathan Lane as we review the history of the Knox Trail and discuss plans for the coming commemorations. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Due to a technical difficulty this morning we are offering a "Revolution 250 Re-Podcast." Today's podcast will be from December 7, 2021 on the epic biography of King George III by Andrew Roberts, the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In this podcast, Professor Allison and Professor Roberts discuss the many remarkable qualities of George III as a monarch which are overshadowed by the events of the American Revol...

Johnson Hall, designed in 1763 by noted colonial architect Peter Harrison, was the grand estate of Sir William Johnson, the influential British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New York. From this stately home, Johnson shaped alliances that helped keep many Indigenous nations aligned with the Crown during the struggle for American independence. Today, the Johnson Hall is preserved as a New York State Historic Site, offering a window into the complex relationships between empire, Native peo...

Host Robert Allison talks with Ron Peterson and David Martin about dramatic and little-known stories from Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket during the Revolution. From the fierce 1779 Battle of Falmouth to Nantucket’s divided loyalties, British shipwrecks, and the vital roles of African American and Native American patriots, this episode reveals how the Cape and Islands were anything but quiet backwaters in America’s fight for independence. To order a copy of the Book, The Revolution...

It is easy to see the Franklin stove as just an invention to improve the lives of colonial Americans. The stove, like many of Franklin's inventions, went through a series of improvements as he explored the science of heat convection and thermal dynamics. Other changes and considerations came about as Franklin changed the fuel from wood to coal. This is just one aspect of the impact of Franklin's stove on the 18th-century world. We talk with Professor Joyce Chaplin about her new bo...

From Lucifer’s rebellion to Adam and Eve’s expulsion, from Lancelot’s betrayal to Macbeth’s downfall, stories of greatness undone have gripped audiences for centuries. For America’s Revolutionaries, the cautionary examples of Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell warned of leaders who turned against the people. No figure embodies this tragic arc in American history more than General Benedict Arnold. Once a brilliant and passionate commander whose daring made him one of the Revolution’s most effec...

July 4, 2026 the United States of America will celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There will be thousands of commemorations across the nation, but the national effort is being led by America 250, the Semiquincentennial Commission with its mission to Educate, Engage, and Unite for our national celebration. We had a chance to speak with Rosie Rios, Chair of America 250 and to learn more about America 250’s efforts to lead the nation in commemor...

What a story about the American incursion into Canada, 1774-1776! Mark R. Anderson learned about this episode in a military history class--and then, as an officer in the United States Air Force during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns earlier in this century, he recalled what he had learned, and wanted to find a good book on the Canadian campaign. Finding none, he wrote The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America’s War of Liberation in Canada, 1774–1776, explores this fascinating cha...

How does a Boston-born, Philadelphia printer, scientist and entrepreneur, journey from the position of a proud member of the British Empire with many friends at Court, to a leader in the movement for American Independence. Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) as we delve into the life and experiences of Benjamin Franklin. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

John Trumbull's paintings have done more to etch the key events of the American Revolution into America's memory than perhaps anyone else. The son of the Governor of Connecticut and the brother of a Governor of Connecticut, Trumbull served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He knew many of the key figures of these events, and when he painted them, he painted them as he knew them. We talk with Damien M. Cregeau, author of "Portraits of Patriots: Colonel John Trumbull...

Taverns in the 18th century were more than watering holes: they were centers of cultural, political and social influence, gathering places for communities and conduits through which news was conveyed by traders and travelers from far away. We talk with Professor Malcolm Purinton, author of Globalization in a Glass: The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste, and Empire, about the role of taverns in the American Revolution, as well as about what people were drinking in...

Since parting ways 250 years ago, the United States and the United Kingdom have spent the intervening centuries building one of the most enduring and supportive international relationships. On today's Revolution 250 Podcast, Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) is in conversation with the UK Consul-General for New England, David Clay, MBE. Join us as we discuss two and a half centuries of diplomacy between our two nations. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Join us as we uncover the remarkable, complex life of John Laurens—soldier, diplomat, abolitionist, and one of the most passionate idealists of the American Revolution. Gregory D. Massey speaks with us about his acclaimed biography John Laurens and the American Revolution. Together we'll explore the fiery convictions and bold actions of a young South Carolinian who fought not only against British tyranny but also against the hypocrisy of slavery in a nation proclaiming liberty.&nb...

We just celebrated the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill in which the men of Connecticut under Colonel Thomas Knowlton played a pivatol part. Today we investigate the life of another Connecticut patriot, Colonel John Durkee of Norwich, Connecticut. To help us learn more about Col. Durkee and his friends and neighbors in eastern Connecticut Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) is in conversation with Dayne E. Rugh, author of John Durkee; The Forgotten St...

If Joseph Warren had lived, Peter Oliver said, no one would have heard of Washington. This might be an exaggeration, but few patriot leaders were as important to the cause as Joseph Warren—Roxbury physician, chair of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, chair of the Committee of Safety, Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge—he did not seek office, but his compatriots recognized his talents and put him to work. His death at the Battle of Bunker Hill, at the age of 34, deprived the ca...

For our 250th Episode, Pulitzer-prize winning author Rick Atkinson joins us to talk about his best-selling new book, The Fate of the Day: From Ticonderoga to Charleston, which focuses on the War between the British capture of Ticonderoga in 1777 to the fall of Charleston in 1780. HIs book, and our conversation, plumb the depths of the American Revolution and the characters who shaped the war. This is the second volume of his Revolutionary War trilogy, and leaves us wan...

Captain John Parker is famously supposed to have said on Lexington Green, "If they mean to have a war, let it begin here." Even if the attribution is true, did the British or the Provincials mean to have a war in April of 1775? Join Professor Robert Allison (Suffolk University) as he explores the aftermath of the events of April 19, 1775 through the end of the year. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Jane McCrea’s death in 1777 became a powerful tool of Revolutionary propaganda, fueling anti-British sentiment across the colonies. Her murder by British-allied Native warriors was portrayed as savage and unjust, rallying support for the Patriot cause and highlighting the perceived brutality of British alliances. We talk with Blake Grindon about her book on the life, death, and legacy of Jane McCrea. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

2027 will be the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga and the surrender of General John Burgoyne's forces to those of General Horatio Gates. Often called the "Turning Point of the Revolution" the victory over Burgoyne was instrumental in earning America its first European ally, France. Long a subject of legend and story, Burgoyne's expedition is now the subject of a new series of novels by Avellina Balestri titled All Ye That Pass By.Join Revolution 250 guest host Jonathan Lane a...

The monuments of Washington D.C. are among the most visited sites in our nation's capital. The legacies of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt are carried through the generations by their stone memorials in D.C. Today, there is a national commission to investigate and plan for a new addition to those memorials, one dedicated to John Adams and the many notable members of his family, including Abigail, John Quincy, Louisa Catherine, Charles Francis and Henry Adams. We t...

What is a "turning point"? We talk with John Mass, whose new book From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points in the Revolutionary War looks at five episodes that changed the course of the war and lead toward the American victory. Which were the decisive moments? Listen to find out! Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Don Troiani's magnificently detailed battle paintings and meticulously-researched uniforms bring to life early-American military history. He has collaborated with historian John Rees on a visual and artistic look at Black soldiers from the Seven Years War to the Civil War, in this richly-illustrated Don Troiani's Black Soldiers in America's Wars 1754-1865. Historian John Rees, whose previous book, They Were Good Soldiers, told the story of African-Americans in th...

After World War II, book publishers and film makers worked to identify American heroes that they could promote to the world. Frequently these heroes were self-made men who used specialized knowledge or skills to defeat an overwhelming enemy. One such character was Francis Marion, a South Carolina plantation owner who utlized his knowledge of the countryside to prey upon British garrisons and foraging parties. We talk with John Oller, author of The Swamp Fox: How Francis Mario...

As we get close to Patriots Day, let us remember that the fighting along "Battle Road" and the entire siege of Boston involved thousands of men from hundreds of communities. On April 19, 1775 as the "Lexington Alarm" spread throughout the region, towns mustered their militia and they marched towards the fight. Needham sent 185 men to fight the Redcoats that day, losing five men in the process. Join Gloria Greis of the Needham History Center & Museum in conversation...

On the afternoon of April 19, as the people of Plymouth and Barnstable counties heard of the battles at Lexington and Concord, they mustered their militia and sent them. .. to Marshfield. We talk with Patrick Browne of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society about the "almost battle of Marshfield," the only town outside of Boston that had a detachment of Redcoats. We hear about why the British were in Marshfield, and what the militia did to force them, and Marshfield's many loyalists out...

For 50 years the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library in Lexington has been telling the story of America and the Masonic traditions that are interwoven with that narrative. The museum has a collection of more than 17,000 objects and manages another 11,000 objects belonging to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Objects from that collection and pieces from their world-class library are being used to launch a new exhibit on April 13, 2025 entitled Protest & Promise: The American Revolutio...

Loyalty and Patriotism in the American Revolution: Which side are you one? Are "loyalist" and "patriot" useful terms in deciphering the sides to the American Revolution? A conversation with Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and their World, about the changing meanings of loyalty and patriotism in the era of the American Revolution. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Christina Carrick, an editor at the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, formerly an editor at the Robert Treat Paine Papers, joins us to talk about Jefferson and Paine. She also talks about the loyalist family networks she has studied--New England merchants sent into exile who maintained connections with home. She also discusses editorial projects, and how to become part of these important projects through organizations like the Association for Documentary Editing. Tell us what you ...

Some of the bloodiest fighting on April 19, 1775 happened in the village of Menotomy, the community lay along the main road from Cambridge to Concord. It had numerous mills, taverns and a meetinghouse and burial ground along this road, some of which still show scars from that day. We talk with Matthew Beres, Executive Director of the Arlington Historical Society, based in the Jason Russell House, about the fighting there and in the rest of Arlington, and the town's commemorations ...

There is a lot of focus on the events of April 19, 1775, events that set in motion America's call for Independence from Great Britain. Securing our independence took 8 long years of war. What is the impact of the war for American independence on a community? Beth van Duzer of the Concord 250 Subcommittee on History and Education tell us about the community of Concord's project to gather up Revolutionary war stories of the people who lived and died in that town. ...

"Place is of very little consequence," Mary Sewall of Marblehead wrote to her sister in Nova Scotia in 1799," except as it brings you near to those whom by nature you are most nearly allied." The Sewall sisters had been separated by war, yet family ties endured and complicated their relationships in the post-Revolutionary world. Patrick O'Brien of the University of Tampa, writing about the divided families of Marblehead, joins us to talk about the ties sundered by the Revolution ...

As word spread of the British march to Lexington and Concord, communities from all over Massachusetts and greater New England responded. Historian Alan Foulds tells us about the Lynn End (now Lynnfield) militia, who were warned by medical student Martin Herrick, and their march to Menotomy, where they fought the British at the Jason Russell House. The Lynnfield Historical Society has told these stories in a series of videos, and will re-enact these events, and will put on a ...

Acting on intelligence that the Provincial militia had cannon in a Salem blacksmith shop, Beneral Thomas Gage sent Lt. Colonel Alexander Leslie and the 64th Regiment of Foot to Marblehead and then to Salem to find the weapons. We talk with Charlie Newhall and Jonathan Streff about this expedition, known as "Leslie's Retreat," which is re-enacted in Salem every February. Leslie did not get the cannon, but he and the people of Salem avoided war. Tell us what you think! Send us a t...

The Boston Town Watch kept order on the streets of Boston, particularly at night. When soldiers of the Crown arrived in 1768 their overlapping authorities came into conflict, which deepened as Crown and colony careened towards war. We talk with Nicole Breault of the University of Texas, El Paso, who is writing a book on the Boston Town Watch. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

Few things shocked American patriots as the betrayal of General Benedict Arnold. After attempting to surrender West Point to the British, Arnold led a series of raids, first in Virginia, and then in his native state of Connecticut. Matthew E. Reardon has written a new account of Arnold's raid on New London and attack on Fort Griswold, The Traitor's Homecoming; Benedict Arnold's Raid on New London September 4-13, 1781. Tell us what you think! Send us a text message!

The first engagement against the Crown forces that involved soldiers from multiple provinces operating under a unified command. The first use of field artillery by the Provincial forces. The destruction of the HMS Diana, whose mainmast was to be used to hoist the "Grand Union Flag" atop Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776. Few engagements can boast so much, and yet the engagement that has become known locally as "The Battle of Chelsea Creek" has all of those stories and so much more....

Few men were as highly esteemed and just a decade later despised beyond measure as Timothy Ruggles. Ruggles was a hero of the French & Indian War, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress from Massachusetts, a land owner, legislator and community leader who had a large and prosperous family. His daughter Bathsheba married a Boston man, Joshua Spooner, and their marriage was once described as "inharmonious." Imagine then the country gossip when Joshua was found in March 1778 ...

Founded in 1923 through the gift of William Lawrence Clements, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a fount of historical manuscripts, maps and rare books, particularly on the American Revolution. Their collections include the papers of General Thomas Gage, and General Henry Clinton, two of the leading British military leaders during the American Revolution, as well as Lord George Germain, a cabinet minister and Hessian General von Jungkenn. The C...

We are now deep into the Semiquincentennial commemoration of the events that led to American Independence. 2025 represents a watershed year as we commemorate the Battles of Lexington & Concord, Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill. Just in time to help us remember these events, and why we are commemorating the 250th, Professor Abby Chandler of UMass Lowell, has launched a new journal, Remembering the American Revolution at 250. Professor Chandler joins us to talk ab...

After a stint in the Navy and forty years teaching history, Larry Kidder was curios about the lives of ordinary people in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He could not find a good book on the subject, so he started writing , and how he has told stories of the Revolution from the vantage point of New Jersey's militia. On Christmas Eve he joins us to share the epic story of General Washington crossing the Delaware, and introduces us to the Revolutionary World of Jacob Francis, a Free B...

John Dickinson burst onto the scene with his "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1767 and 1768. He wrote "The Liberty Song," sung all over America, including at the 1769 Sons of Liberty dinner in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and the Continental Congress's Olive Branch Petition and with Jefferson the "Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms." While he opposed the Declaration of Independence, he drafted t...

In the place of Professor Cornelia Dayton who could not join us today, Professor Robert Allison presents a lecture on the military career of Benjamin Lincoln, who, with General George Washington and General Nathanael Greene were to only General officers to serve from the Siege of Boston to Yorktown. Lincoln came from a distinguished family in Hingham, Massachusetts where the family held various town offices since the 17th century. While Lincoln never anticipated a military career,...

Today, the Revolution 250 Podcast revisits an episode from 2021. Next May will be the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Chelsea Creek and plans are in preparation for the commemoration of this important event. The first time the patriots use artillery, the first time they sink a British ship, and the first time officers and men from different colonies stage a joint operation--the battle of Chelsea Creek, in what today are the cities of Chelsea and Revere, and the East Boston neighborho...

Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” remains one of the defining rebukes to the work of the Founders. While Douglass admired the ideals of the Founders, their inability to extend their precepts of liberty to people of color Douglass considered a breach of the promise of America. Frederick Douglass scholar and performer Nathan Richardson talks with us about Douglass’ use of the founding ideals to fight for the emancipation of people of color an...

Lexington, Massachusetts has long been a tourist destination. The Marquis de Lafayette famously made a visit during his tour of 1824 and the crowds have only grown since then. The Inn at Hastings Park, established by Cordon Bleu-trained chef Tricia Perez Kennealy is where Revolutionary history and revolutionary hospitality have come together, just in time for the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. The Inn at Hastings Park is a 22-room luxury boutique hotel with a restau...

He was born the year before the Revolution began. His mother died before his 7th birthday. His father ended up in debtor's prison and provided material aid to men involved in Shays's Rebellion. Yet his story is known to many and has been portrayed in song, story and animated movies across the world. This is the story of John Chapman, aka "Johnny Appleseed" who left his impoverished home in Longmeadow, Massachusetts to spendhis life wandering the Northwest Territory creating ...