443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution
Declaring independence on July 2, 1776, was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recognition, and the credibility to...
16 Jun 1h 17min
BFW Revisited: Reading the Declaration of Independence for Equality
On July 4th, 2026, the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence announced a new nation to the world. But how well do we actually know the document we're celebrating? Most o...
9 Jun 51min
442 Everyday Military Life in the American Revolution
When we picture the American Revolution, we picture battles. But for the men and women who actually lived and fought in it, the Revolution was also a job with mess rotations, night watches, short rati...
2 Jun 1h 23min
BFW Revisited: Valley Forge
Most of us learned the same story: During the winter at Valley Forge, George Washington's army suffered and endured. Ragged soldiers huddled together in frozen huts and gnawed on shoe leather for food...
26 Mai 1h 8min
441 The Escapes of David George
When David George lay sick with smallpox in Savannah during the Revolutionary War, he faced three possible outcomes: death, re-enslavement, or freedom. Greg O'Malley, Professor of History at UC Santa...
19 Mai 1h 15min
BFW Revisited: Running from Bondage in the American Revolution
She fled on horseback in the thick of war. Her six-year-old son rode with her. The white tailor at her side would pass, when anyone asked, as her husband. Her name was Sarah. She was one of tens of th...
12 Mai 57min
440 Jefferson's Cut Grievance and the British Monarchy's Role in Slavery
Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence contained 28 grievances against King George III — not 27. The final grievance, the one Congress cut before signing, accused the British kin...
5 Mai 1h 16min
BFW Revisited: Whose Fourth of July?
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass stood before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and asked one of the most searing questions in American history: "What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?...
28 Apr 1h 15min
