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Hopefully, we think of our nation’s servicemen every day – with respect, with pride, with gratitude. We especially think of them on the anniversaries important to the biggest wars in which they served – on days like Independence Day, Flag Day, Constitution Day, and of course, Veterans’ Day. But Memorial Day is the most direct one: a specific commemoration of those servicemen “who gave the full measure of devotion” for their country – that is, those who died in service to these United States. Memorial Day is therefore about many people – hundreds of thousands of men and women since...

Geraldo Rivera tweeted video of a truck-mounted machine gun in Mogadishu Wednesday as part of his continuing effort to prove AR-15s are machine guns and should be banned. Rivera’s video also shows a machine gun that is being carried by soldier. Neither of the guns are AR-15s, but he tweeted about them to show his support for an “assault weapons” ban. Breitbart News noted that Geraldo told hosts on FOX News’ The Five that “AR” stands for “automatic rifle.”

The sun never set on the British Empire. It was the largest empire in world history. Out of nearly 200 countries in the world, only 22 were never controlled, invaded or attacked by Britain. In April of 1775, the British Royal Military Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, sent 800 British Army Regulars, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, on a preemptive raid to seize guns from American patriots at Lexington and Concord. George Mason of Virginia stated: "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." A warning was sent from...

On April 19th, 1775, at about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green.Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or...

Reading Time: 5 minutes Charlotte, NC — “I can tell you right now, I do not know whether we’re going to win or lose. The only thing that I can control is a little piece of real estate inside my own shoes, and I can tell you whatever happens that I will go down fighting and that I will die with my boots on,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy’s remarks came at the end of a nearly 50-minute speech given last month. He described how America is currently in the midst of the second American Revolution, and indeed it...

Today, the left is better at revolutionary ideas, in part because they’re willing to be revolutionary in their thinking and in their governing.The story of the past 100-plus years is the story of the rout of American conservatism — and the near complete and total takeover of the country and its Commanding Heights by a cadre of highly intelligent, determined, and ruthless individuals. How did the century begin? The left started from a humble base: a few people here and there, but certainly not dominating the levers of society. They were scattered about entertainment and Congress, and only truly formidable...

The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the slave trade and then slavery itself had to start somewhere, and a strong argument can be made that it started with the thirteen American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain, then the world’s leading slave trading country.

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of essays written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson (1732–1808) and published under the name "A Farmer" from 1767 to 1768. The twelve letters were widely read and reprinted throughout the thirteen colonies and were important in uniting the colonists against the Townshend Acts. text

Bathsheba Spooner, the first woman executed* in the post-Declaration of Independence (i.e., post-July 4, 1776) United States. The daughter of one of Massachusetts’s most prominent Tory loyalists — the latter fled to Nova Scotia during the events comprising this post, owing to the ongoing American Revolution — Spooner was married to a wealthy Brookfield gentleman whom she utterly despised. From late 1777 into 1778, Bathsheba beguiled three young would-be Davids — Ezra Ross, a wounded former Continental Army soldier whom she nursed back to health; and James Buchanan and William Brooks, two redcoat deserters — into getting rid of Mr....

... In the meantime, more Patriot militiamen were gathering at various bottlenecks along Battle Road to set up ambushes, the first being at Meriam’s Corner where the British had to cross a small bridge. On the open road, most of the soldiers marched in a column five men wide, while other troops known as flankers fanned out like wings on a bird to protect the column by keeping the Patriots out of accurate range. Of course, at a bridge the flankers had to join the main column so they could cross as well, which allowed the Patriots to come closer....

“That’s insane!” These days, how often do we say those words? The litany could go on and on. Dr. Seuss is suddenly persona non grata, six of his books removed from publication because they are “racist” and “hateful.” That’s insane! Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has become a widely reviled personality because she claims that boys are born male and girls, female? That’s insane! Statues of Abraham Lincoln are being torn down and schools named after the Great Emancipator renamed in the cause of fighting racism. That’s insane! Woke educators decry mathematics education focused on getting “the right answer” as...

A veteran returned a sword he stole from a statue of a Revolutionary War general 40 years ago, telling the head of the Massachusetts town's historical commission that he regretted taking it. Cindy P. Gaylord, the chair of Westfield's Historical Commission, said a man contacted the city hall saying he had the sword stolen from the town's statue of Gen. William Shepard in 1980, the Springfield Republican reported on Sunday. Gaylord agreed to give the man anonymity if he returned the bronze sword and arranged for him and his wife to drop it off at her home, she said.

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Have you heard this famous declaration before? American patriot Nathan Hale said it on September 22, 1776, his last words before he was hanged for spying on British troops. How did this come to pass? Hale, born in Coventry, Connecticut, on June 6, 1755, and a teacher by trade, joined his five brothers in the fight for independence against the British.

George Washington dictated a "talk" to the Cherokee Nation, August 29, 1796: “Beloved Cherokees, The wise men of the United States meet together once a year, to consider what will be for the good of all their people ... I have thought that a meeting of your wise men once or twice a year would be alike useful to you ... I now send my best wishes to the Cherokees, and pray the Great Spirit to preserve them.” Twelve of the original 13 states sent delegates to Philadelphia. (Rhode Island boycotted the Convention.) Instead of rewriting the Articles of Confederation,...

...Reflections on the anniversary of the closure of King’s College and the flight of its dean… On May 10, 1775, Dr. Myles Cooper was on top of the world. As President of King’s College in New York City for the previous dozen years, he was in the inner circle of British leadership in New York, responsible for the education of many of the finest students in the Americas, spokesman for loyalist thought in an age of rebellion. But by the morning of May 11, driven out of the college in the dead of night by an angry mob, he was...

I am looking for recommendations for a book about the American Revolution from FReepers. I'm in my forties - so a 'Karen' ha! - that's fine whatever. Anyway a real succinct look at it for one who is not extremely well informed. Not some Howard Zinn account that Goebbles would give a wink and a nod to. Just a well written account of the history of the men who by signing the Declaration were putting the risk of being hanged for treason on the line.

At first glance, the new nationalism of conservatives will seem benign and even uncontroversial. In his book “The Case for Nationalism,” Rich Lowry defines nationalism as flowing from a people’s “natural devotion to their home and to their country.” Yoram Hazony, in his book “The Virtue of Nationalism,” also has a rather anodyne definition of nationalism. It means “that the world is governed best when nations agree to cultivate their own traditions, free from interference by other nations.” There is nothing particularly controversial at all about these statements. Defined in these terms, it sounds like little more than simply defending...

In June of 1777, British General "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne was marching from Quebec, Canada toward Albany, New York, with an army of 7,000 British and Hessian troops. British General William Howe was supposed to be marching north, up the Hudson River Valley, from New York City to Albany in a "divide and conquer" entrapment plan. Instead, without telling Burgoyne, General Howe abandoned the plan and left to capture Philadelphia - the capital of the new United States. This was in accordance with European warfare, that when an enemy's capital was captured, the war would immediately end. British General Burgoyne first...

The British approach to its American colony in 1775 offers valuable lessons for historians and military professionals in the synthesis between the levels of wartime leadership and their effect on direct action at the tactical level. As such, it is worthwhile to reflect on the British experience in 1775, and how guidance from strategic and operational leaders had a dramatic impact on the opening stages of the conflict. A misalignment of desired objectives, a desire to exercise control down to the lowest echelon, and poorly executed direct leadership defined the British approach concerning the events surrounding Lexington and Concord on...

The Continental Congress in Philadelphia approved the final text of the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, but it wasn't until July 8, 1776 that the historic document had been printed and could be publicly read. From the tower at Independence Hall the great bell rang out, summoning citizens to hear the new nation's proclamation of sovereignty. What we know today as the Liberty Bell had not yet acquired its iconic crack. But its noteworthy inscription was plain to see: "Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." Those words hadn't been drafted by one...