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Catherine the Great of Russia (1729-1796) rebuffed King George III's requests and bribes to have Russia side with Britain during the Revolutionary War. Instead, Russia continued trading with the American colonies, providing much needed supplies. Catherine even attempted to negotiate a peace with France and Britain to bring an early end to the war in America's favor. Catherine the Great had earlier deposed her husband, Tsar Peter III, in a coup. She then fought the Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774), against the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Empire. Her General, Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov destroyed the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Chesma, July 5-7,...

Human skeletal remains -- possibly belonging to Revolutionary War soldiers who fought in the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777 -- were discovered under the foundation of an early 18th-century house last week. The Connecticut Office of State Archaeology was notified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner about the find on Dec. 2. Subsequent excavations by the state archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni, with assistance from the Friends of the Office of State Archaeology, Inc. and University of Connecticut graduate students, have yielded two more skeletons. "One has been completely excavated already and is in the medical examiner's office and we're...

Today marks the 246th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party when American patriots, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor in protest. You’re probably somewhat familiar with this seminal event but you may not be with the story of those behind it. The “Sons Of Liberty” flag shares its origin with the participants, their call of no “taxation without representation,” imbued a national character and revolutionary spirit that echoes to this very day. It inspires us to not exist quietly as mere subjects of our own government, or any...

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" were the last words of 21-year-old American patriot Nathan Hale, who was hanged by the British without a trial on SEPTEMBER 22, 1776. A Yale graduate, 1773, Nathan Hale almost became a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did, but instead became a teacher at Union Grammar School. When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, Nathan Hale joined a Connecticut militia and served in the siege of Boston. On July 4, 1775, Hale received a letter from his Yale classmate, Benjamin Tallmadge, who became General Washington's...

Today’s post is in honor of Marine LCpl. Michael T. Badsing who was killed on this date in 1965 by enemy small-arms fire in South Vietnam. The 20-year-old Chicago native served with C Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. 1781: Hoping to divert Gen. George Washington from marching against Lord Cornwallis’ forces now trapped in Virginia, two battalions of British soldiers — including American Loyalist forces under the command of Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold — assault New London, Conn.. The redcoats easily capture Fort Trumbull, but across the Thames River, the heavily outnumbered defenders of Fort Griswold fiercely...

America great? Justice James Wilson "It is the BEST form of government which has EVER been offered to the WORLD" He was one of six founding fathers to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. President Washington appointed him to be a Justice on the Supreme Court. His name was James Wilson. Born in Scotland, James Wilson was one of the first to argue against British dominance. In 1774, James Wilson wrote "Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament," reasoning that since the colonies had no representation in Parliament, the Parliament...

He intentionally fired into the air, but his political rival, the sitting Vice-President Aaron Burr, took deadly aim and fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel JULY 11, 1804. Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies on the Island of Nevis, either in the year 1755 or 1757, and grew up on the Island of St. Croix. Just a few years earlier, in 1751, 19-year-old George Washington had accompanied his older half-brother Lawrence on a trip to the not too distant Island of Barbados. Since Alexander Hamilton's parents were not legally married, he was not permitted to attend...

Full title: Revolutionary War diary sheds light on Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to join the Continental Army A remarkable Revolutionary War diary written by a Massachusetts corporal sheds light on Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to join the Continental Army. The diary, which features daily entries from March 28, 1781 to Aug. 16, 1782, was written by Abner Weston, detailing his experiences between campaigns, drilling and training. The entry for Jan. 23 1782 also describes Sampson’s first documented attempt to join George Washington’s Army. Sampson famously went on to fight in the Continental Army...

As Benjamin Franklin departed the Constitutional Convention, he was asked if the framers had created a monarchy or a republic. "A republic," he famously replied, and then added, "if you can keep it." The remarkable generation that founded this nation led an improbable yet successful revolution against the strongest military power of the time. They declared their independence based on self-evident truths, asserting a new basis of political rule in the sovereignty of the people and launching an experiment in self-government. Through a carefully written constitution that limits power and secures rights while allowing for change through its own amendment,...

...To turn to the news of the day, it seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eating one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake. Whichever destroys the other leaves a destroyer the less for the world. This pugnacious humor of mankind seems to be the law of his nature, one of the obstacles to too great multiplication provided in the mechanism of the Universe. The cocks of the henyard kill one another up. Boars, bulls, rams do the same. And the horse, in his wild state, kills...

On the same day that the Declaration of Independence became official, a telling event further reveals that our founders understood well the “ancient principles” upon which our republic must be built. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee -- consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams -- to design an official seal for the United States. Adams proposed an image of Hercules contemplating the persuasions of Virtue and Sloth. Franklin proposed a biblical theme: Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who...

he Boston Tea Party famously saw the destruction of the almost 300 chests worth of tea, tossed into the harbor by “Indians” on December 16, 1773. Initial reports described “the total destruction of the Teas aboard the Ships Dartmouth, William, & Eleanor and the Beaver”—the four ships bringing the East India Company’s tea to Boston in 1773. Passed down ever since, the story of the tea’s universal destruction and Bostonians unanimous approval of it has been a founding myth of the American Revolution.[1] But this is not quite accurate. The William never joined the other vessels in Boston Harbor. It...

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, a shot 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 dying and 10 others were wounded. Only...

The Declaration of Dependence signed by 547 New York City Loyalists in November 1776 was not the only such declaration written and signed by loyal inhabitants of the colony of New York soon after British military forces established their presence in the region. At least three others are known to exist, bearing a total of 3,414 signatures of individuals willing to pledge their support of, and subservience to, the British government.In the December 1776 issue of the London publication The Lady’s Magazine or Entertaining Companion the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement under “Home News,” this article...

Paul Revere gets all of the credit, but he never actually finished that famous ride, and in fact warned the British that the Americans were coming. William Dawes and Samuel Prescott were left out of the poem and subsequently most elementary history books: it was actually Samuel Prescott who completed the midnight ride. In addition to Dawes and Prescott, dozens of other men helped spread the word that night. Revere started other express riders on their way before leaving Boston, and he also alerted others along his journey. They too began riding, or shot guns and rang church bells to...

In an uh-oh episode of historic proportions, hand grenades from the last major battle of the Revolutionary War recently and repeatedly scrambled bomb squads in Virginia’s capital city. Wait – they had hand grenades in the Revolutionary War? Indeed. Hollow iron balls, filled with black powder, outfitted with a fuse, then lit and thrown. And more than two dozen have been sitting in cardboard boxes at the Department of Historic Resources, undetected for 30 years. Encrusted and corroded, no one realized what the grenades were when they were excavated in the 1980s along with 5,000 other relics from The Betsy,...

A letter on God and the Constitution written by George Washington is up for sale after spending decades in a private collection. The letter to Richard Peters, speaker of the Pennsylvania Constitution, is signed Sept. 7, 1788, and praises God for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Written a week after Washington told Alexander Hamilton that he would likely accept calls to assume the presidency, the letter came at a time when the Constitution was under attack. Some states wanted to hold a second Convention that may have undermined the Constitution. “It would seem from the public Gazettes that the...

A letter on God and the Constitution written by George Washington is up for sale after spending decades in a private collection. The letter to Richard Peters, speaker of the Pennsylvania Constitution, is signed Sept. 7, 1788, and praises God for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Written a week after Washington told Alexander Hamilton that he would likely accept calls to assume the presidency, the letter came at a time when the Constitution was under attack. Some states wanted to hold a second Convention that may have undermined the Constitution. “It would seem from the public Gazettes that the...

General George Washington was so moved by “The American Crisis” that he ordered it read out loud to his troops, rallying them not to disperse at the end of the year when their six-month enlistment was up, and to have courage before the Battle of Trenton. Not having a table in camp, Paine used the head of a drum for his desk. In “The American Crisis,” Thomas Paine wrote: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by...

On June 25, 1775, William Tryon — the governor of the British colony of New York and a fierce loyalist to the crown — returned to New York City after a yearlong trip overseas. As such, he fully expected to be greeted by a public procession on Broadway. Tryon disembarked from his boat and was indeed met with a parade, but there was just one problem: It wasn’t for him. That same day, the new Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington, had arrived in the city and was met with a hero’s welcome. Adding insult to injury,...