History Channel Presents Laughably Inaccurate 'Sons of Liberty'

NewsBusters ^ | January 26, 2015 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Okay, it wasn't quite as bad as "Sam Adams: Vampire Hunter" but it was close. I am referring to the History channel's series "The Sons of Liberty" in which the real life Sam Adams, who was a middle-aged portly guy by the time of the opening scene in 1765, comes off as a young athletic urban ninja hopping up to the rooftops of Boston to evade arrest by British troops. And that was just one of the many laughable inaccuracies of the History channel's presentation of the era leading up to the American Revolution.

Although one can easily get the sense that history was often left by the wayside just by watching it, several websites have pointed out the numerous historical inaccuracies of the series. Journal of the American Revolution is among those sites listing the many, many inaccuracies of this series. For the sake of brevity, we shall only look at the glaring errors of only the first episode:

[Vermont Lt]

Any show that depicts kicking the crap out of Brits is OK by me. It happened so rarely that its fun to watch.

Yes, it is inaccurate for even the most modest Boston history buff.

But its fun in a silly, Starship Troopers kind of way.

[waxer1]

I enjoyed it.

[Publius]

They got so much of it wrong, with respect to both history and language, that I spent three nights cringing at what the writers did.

Despite that, I could see that their hearts were in the right place, and they were attempting to make history relevant to the unlettered. It was a lot like the old comic book series "Classics Illustrated" from 50 years ago.