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Scope the entire history of the United States of America with the Historyscoper.

Note: This historyscope currently ends with the year 1789.

What Is A Historyscope?

The United States of America was proclaimed on July 4, 1776, and recognized on Sept. 3, 1783. Its current pop. of 312M. Its total land area is 3.79M sq. mi (9.83M sq. km), 3rd largest on Earth, and 3rd most populous. The U.S. economy is the world's largest, with a GDP of $14.5T, 23% of world GDP. It's the home of Marie Osmond, who lost 50 pounds on NutriSystem.

According to English writer G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874-1936): "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things."

The United States of America began with the Protestant English colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, the first a govt. project of King James I, known for pure greedy corporate Capitalism, the second a project of the day's religious hippie dropouts, who naturally started with Communism then bumped up against the realities of human nature. First a little background on the discovery of America by Europe's bad side, the Roman Catholics.

First, we need a foundation. Let's start with the beginning. We want to learn the history of the world, and that means Earth. What is Earth? It's a sphere, get over it. Quick! What is its diameter, in thousands of miles, to one digit accuracy? Eight. When God made the Solar System, he made Earth the 8-ball in the side pocket. What is the mathematical formula for its diameter? D times the magical number Pi, approximately 3.1, giving approximately 25 thousand miles. So if you wanted to go around the Earth in 80 days, you'd have to go how many miles each day? 300. That comes to 12.5 miles per hour if you traveled 24 hours a day. No wonder Phileas Fogg could do it in ships and trains, with enough time left over for camels, hanky-panky, and a little hiking.

What is the formula for the surface area of the Earth in terms of the diameter D and the magical number Pi? Pi times D squared. That comes out to 197 million square miles. How many acres are in a square mile? 640. So that's a lot of acres. Back in the U.S. Civil War (1861-5), the U.S. government promised the blacks of South Carolina 40 acres and a mule, and later reneged. But when they opened up stolen Indian land for the Oklahoma Land Rush in 1889, they promised each white a whole square mile, so they must have thought that a white was equal to 16 nig, er, blacks. Of course not all of the Earth is dry land, and until we learn to live on the bottom of the sea, we are limited to what fraction? Is it like the 80-20 rule, e.g., 20% of the people have 80% of the wealth? No, God was feeling generous. The Earth is 29% land, and 71% water. Not that generous, however, since the Bible says he foreclosed on a bunch of it with a Great Flood to punish man for being bad. That still comes out to 57 million square miles of dry land, which is a whopping big amount. How many square miles do you own? How many acres? Most people don't even own one acre, yet they're doing okay. How did God distribute the land to the aboriginal races of man? There are seven continents, so if they were all equal in size, they'd each get about 8 million square miles, but too bad, some got more and some got less. List the continents from largest to smallest, along with the number of millions of square miles of land. Hint, the largest has the most people. Okay, I'll tell you. Asia got 16, Africa 12, North America 9, South America 7, Antarctica 5, Europe 4, and Australia 3. It helps to memorize these rounded figures, 16-12-9-7-5-4-3. So Asia got double, Africa an extra 50%, and the Americas about the right amount, leaving Antarctica, Europe, and Australia with half each. So, God must have liked the yellow people the best, followed by the blacks, reds and browns, penguins, and finally the whites and Australian aborigines. That's where the White is Right program came from, because the white Euros overpopulated and solved their problems by striking out and stealing everybody else's land, and needed a justification for their crimes, and what's better than saying that God made the white race to rule everybody else, so hand it over or we'll take it in the name of God? Call that TLW's Fractured History of Europe, take it for what it's worth, but don't forget it.

The original Dortmund Pocket and the genesis of the myth of German superiority? In 9 C.E. Germanic (Cherusci) chief Arminius (Hermann) (OG "army man") (-17 to 21), who served in the Roman army from 1-6 C.E., obtained Roman citizenship and a knowledge of Roman military tactics, becoming an equitae ("sir"), and returned home in 7 C.E. to find his people being oppressed by haughty Roman gov. (legate) Publius Quinctilius Varus (b. -46) gets pissed-off and organizes a revolt, throwing Varus off-guard by letting him think that Germania is already a Roman province and he is their gov., feeding him with lawsuits to settle to prove his wisdom, then playing him for a suckah and leading Gorgeous W. Bush, er, Varus and his three legions (20K men) (10% of the entire Roman army) into a trap, where his unarmored warriors outthink, outwit, outlast, and massacre them in the Battle of Teutoburg (Teutoburger) Forest (Wald) in modern-day Kalkriese near Cologne in modern-day North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, N of Colonia Agrippina and Mainz; the battle is not fought in the forest but out in the open, with the Romans trapped between the hills and bogs; the Germans commit atrocities against the loser Romans incl. nailing their heads to trees, cutting the throats of officers on pagan altars, and cutting out tongues and sewing up the mouths; Varus' head is sent back as a present; the news causes panic in Italy, and Augustus goes apeshit, wandering around his palace for months crying "Varus, give me back my legions", and begins to decline into an old fart, ordering the Rhine River to become the permanent border between the Romans and the Germans, while Tiberius is transferred to the Rhine frontier to try to plug the dyke; all hopes of a new N frontier for the Roman Empire are abandoned, and the Romans go permanently on the defensive, creating a permanent division between N and S Europe, allowing the Germans to develop a strong nat. consciousness and breed hordes of Roman killers on their own timetable to exploit the fatal mistake of lack of noive that ultimately dooms the supposedly merciless Romans, who fall in 476 C.E.; this fatal decision outlasted the Roman Empire, forever splitting Europe into the German-speaking north and the Latin-speaking south, which was a big reason for the Protestant Reformation, and even carried over into America; people still can't overcome it today.

Speaking of America. For untold centuries America was populated by brown-red aborigines, who were like kids playing in a candy store until their number came up and they were invaded by mean serious greedy madass genocidal militaristic white Roman Catholics from Spain and Portugal, who found them still in the Stone Age while they had the latest advanced military technology. Don't ask me why they were so backward, since anthropologists later claimed that they had been in the Americas as long or longer than the whites had been in Europe, but there's no way I'm going for the Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-40) divinely-inspired Mormon theory that traces them back to the Lost Tribes of the Jews circa 700 B.C.E., and claims they started out white but were cursed by God with dark skin and ignorance to punish them for rejecting lily-white Jesus and going pagan. (Smith looked like Elvis and had the same appetite for hotel keys attached to panties, so his motives were suspect, sorry.) Plus it helped that these filthy world-traveling wick-dipping Spanish buggers brought with them a host of horrible European diseases that their New World immune systems had no defense for, causing whole countrysides to be wiped out every time a Spaniard took a shit in a river. Hence, though few in number, the white invaders soon conquered vast stretches of territory populated by millions, developing the attitude that New World peoples are an inferior race that God wants them to wipe out and/or convert to the True Faith, and is all part of white man's ultimate god Progress, show it around, show it in town, show it to people, this is something funky, guard yourself from identity theft. No wonder they loved the title of Conquistador, it was a mission from God like the Blues Brothers, insure yourself with Geico, State Farm, Allstate or 21st dot com, you're in safe hands with White is Right.

Speaking of backward, why did Europe take so long to discover the New World? Answer: the Roman Catholic Church, which totally controlled all people's minds, and claimed to have a pipeline to God, thus couldn't be questioned when their learned ignoramus theologians thumped their Bibles and pronounced the world to be flat, with a horrible edge surrounded by giant sea monsters and whirpools leading straight to Hell, one pair of khaki shorts ain't going to happen, the perfect pair of jeans, priceless, win a trip not. Too bad, in 1347-50 the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) wiped out a third or half of all the people and animals in Europe, incl. the Catholic hierarchy, after which the survivors (those lucky enough to have natural immunity or wealthy enough to sit it out in isolated villas like in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron) found a new Europe, where labor shortages soon caused wage freezes followed by labor movements, and a lot of poor downtrodden peasants suddenly arrived in the big city with sacks full of loot from the homes of dead rich people, expecting to be called sir and maam, leading to questioning of all authority, while the intelligentsia finally had their suspicions confirmed that the Church (which lamely tried to blame the plague on the Jews, having them burned in wells etc., until they realized the Jews were getting it too) was a giant fraud and had no more pipeline to God than my big toe, and began to engage in historyscoping to trace the Church back to its roots. Guess what, after chucking the Lives of the Catholic Saints as B.S., they soon discovered a giant (how many giants is that?) coverup of the ancient pagan (hence Devil-worshipping, as in excommunication happens) Roman and Greek worlds, along with their advanced mathematics and science, which the Church pooh-poohed as too worldly and not winning any points toward the salvation of one's soul, the world is a test anyway, fuggedaboutit and pass the cannoli. Since there was nowhere else to get their hands on ancient manuscripts than the infidel Muslim Moors in Spain and other infidel Muslims in the Mediterranean (which was a Muslim lake for centuries), they flirted with infidelity and even agnosticism or atheism, becoming Freethinkers and Rationalists, at the risk of excommunication, confiscation and death, putting on a dangerous double act to survive. Big Science took its first infant steps, how did they know they'd open the Pandora's Box with the A-bomb and genetic engineering, so let's recap, what are you waiting for, call Saracen for the latest Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Aristotle or Plato. This underground movement, which attracted the cream of the most courageous brain men and had to fight the retro Catholic hierarchy every step of the way, coming at them on all intellectual fronts, artistic, philosophical, and literary as well as scientific while braving burning at the stake, it was sick and sad at the same time, became known as the (ta-da) Renaissance, the first reality show on European TV.

Meanwhile the big secular-military power in Europe was the Holy Roman Empire, run by Germany and Austria, while the Italian-based popes who ran the mental empire played tug-of-war with them. The HRE reached its peak of grate wealth and powah in 1452, when 37-y.-o. German Hapsburg King Frederick III, archduke of Austria, duke of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and king of Rome after many years of kissing his butt was finally crowned HRE Frederick (Friedrich) III (1415-93) by Pope #209 (since 1447) Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli) (1397-1455) (two nickels make a dime?), a humanist bibliophile who founded the Vatican Library and hired scholars to translate Greek and Roman manuscripts, and began improving Rome's streets, water supply, etc., to make it magnificent and impress the little people and discourage any more pesky antipopes from even thinking about it, ordering Constantine's 4th cent. Basilica replaced with St. Peter's Basilica, which took 20 more popes to complete (until 1784), the immense loot from the New World making it one of them millionaire mansions that is never quite finished until the stock market crash, imagine the lakes of Indio blood shed to pay for it. Freddy III was crowned HRE three days after marrying 18-y.-o. infanta Eleanor (Leonor) of Portugal (1434-67), whose large dowry paid off his debts and cemented his grate wealth and powah, and he became the last HRE crowned in Rome by the pope. His motto was the anagram "AEIOU", "Austria Est Imperare Orbi Universo", meaning Austria is the Ruler of the World (It is Austria's Destiny to Rule the World), which he had inscribed on all his possessions and his 22-inch biceps :) Too bad, 40 years later Columbus discovered the New World, and the Austrians didn't get any, causing Western Europe to pass them by, their big biceps shrinking to toothpicks like a shrunken balloon, and by the 20th cent. they were down to a cute little tourist trap with the Von Trapps and Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do. No wonder their #1 guy Ahnuld (Arnold) Schwarzenegger emigrated (legally - he's one of the Blonde German Master Race, no passport check needed) to the U.S. to become the #1 Hollywood star then marry into the Kennedy clan so he could become a sperm bank and found the Austrian empire in America at long last, watch them Terminator factories, what year was that supposed to happen? But I'm disgressing, so I'll get back to the history of Mexico.

It all really started in 1453 C.E., when the Ottoman Muslims after hundreds of yearly attempts finally captured the eastern Christian outpost stronghold of Constantinople, freaking the entire Christian world and leading to perversions and flukes like Vlad Dracula the Impaler, causing the Portuguese under Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) to accelerate their search for escape routes to the south, having already discovered the Azores (1432) and West Africa (1433) after they broke down and stooped to use the infidel Muslim astrolabe then made their own technological leap of a 3-masted vessel that allowed them to finally navigate in open waters around 1420. In 1441 the lucky Portuguese discovered cocoa puff African blacks, which they immediately recognized as two-legged animals that would be useful as slaves, setting up Elmina Castle in Ghana in 1471, which became the world's #1 slave-trading post - it's as big as a horse, ask me about it sometime, gag? In 1486 they finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope, allowing them to go east and reach India and China. Meanwhile on June 18, 1452 after requests by Portuguese king (1438-81) Afonso V the African (1431-81), Pope Nicholas V issued the bull pagans, and consign them to indefinite slavery, launching the West African slave trade. Too bad, on Jan. 8, 1455, after getting over the shock of the 1453 Ottoman Muslim capture and rape of Constantinople, and wanting to bless the adventurous but devout Portuguese and Spanish with global holy mojo, Nicholas V finally decided to take off the gloves and issued the bigger bull Romanus Pontifex, creating the Roman Catholic Doctrine of Discovery, with the soundbyte: "We bestow suitable favors and special graces on those Catholic kings and princes... athletes and intrepid champions of the Christian faith... to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and ... to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate ... possessions and goods, and to convert them to ... their use and profit." Not that I mind it when it comes to horrible Muslims, but when it ends up being used to enslave people just for not having white skin, it stinks.

But when it comes to the New World, it all started in 1492 C.E. when up-and-coming "Los Reyes Catolicos" (the Catholic Kings) Ferdinand II (1452-1516) and Isabella I (1451-1504) of Aragon and Castile finally finished the Catholic Reconquista, kicking the last Muslim butt out of Spain (which the Allah Akbars had invaded back in 711 C.E., talk about persistence), deciding to expel all 250K pesky Jews from Spain too for good measure, when they were suddenly approached by mysterious Italian-Portuguese-who-knows-what Ben Cristobal Kingsley Colon, AKA Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), who had already been told to fuck off in 1483 by Portuguese king Joao (John) II the Perfect (1455-95), and who seemed to know that if they just went west far enough, there'd be an escape route for the Jews, who had long found a safe haven from the horrible mean Christians in Muslim Spain, where they had been free to work up to grand vizier and live the good life as high-paid physicians and moneylending usurers gorging on kosher Valencia oranges, and now had nowhere to go except to Africa, where the Christians might invade at any moment, and no way to stay unless they liked to be basted with oranges. In other words, he was probably a secret Jew, a front man like Ben Kingsley (1943-) in the 1993 Steven Spielberg flick "Schindler's List", or maybe a Christian Jewish sympathizer like Oskar Schindler (1908-74) himself. No, this isn't yet more proof that the New Worlders are the Lost Tribes of the Hebes and he had their original map, since he based his data on an ancient Greek map by brain man Eratosthenes of Cyrene (-276 to -194) that he got from the Muslims, which had been mistranslated to shrink 25K mi. (the true circumference of the Earth, as Big E had measured from Sun angles in Egypt) to 3K mi., making him believe that since in past times Jews would flee the persecution of Christians by going 2K mi. east to India, they should be able to find a 1K mi. shortcut to the west, and bypass all them Muslims that were in control of the Mediterranean to boot, never mind how he kept his men from throwing him overboard as he doctored his log books to make it look like they were going awfully slow but land was just over the next horizon, like something more adventurous to do this summer, go Australian. His cover story to the Catholic Kings was that after reaching the east coast of Cathay or India he would work his way to some emperor or maharaja and bring back a boatload of rare spices, which were in high demand in an era of no refrigeration, and would not only pay for the trip but finance yet another Crusade to the Holy Land to kick infidel Muslim butt for Dear Lord Christ, who somehow had let them lose all them other Crusades dating back to 1095 C.E. because they weren't worthy enough yet. Ferdinand didn't buy it, but Isabella did, and so you can credit America's discovery to a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple a la James Gaius Watt (1938-), whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to Julius Caesar's uncle Gaius Marius (-157 to -86). Too bad, Columbus was accompanied by holier-than-thou Roman Catholic priests experienced in using all the tools, who worked with him and Spanish soldiers to kill, rape, torture, and enslave the aborigines, which they found natural after discovering them chomping on human flesh, which is why they called the new sea the Caribbean, after the ferocious man-eating Caribe (Carib) tribe (Spanish for cannibal).

Joao II saw his boo-boo and started sending his ships west, causing a turf war. Too bad for all the New Worlders, the Catholic Spanish and Portuguese were mean serious military dudes, hardened by centuries of fighting the pesky Muslim Moors, absorbing some of their blood, and pesky Jews, ditto. But even worse, they both had a longstanding illegal alien problem with the Wandering Jews, many of whom feigned conversion to Catholicism to stay, while secretly practising Judaism and killing Christian infants to use their blood for matzoh (not really - that was called the Jewish libel), causing them to be called Marranos (Spanish for swine), for whom in 1478 the Spanish instituted the horrible Spanish Inquisition (followed by Portugal in 1497), where they tortured you until you confessed, and burned you if you didn't, confiscating all your property either way, and cancelling all them loans they gave you, we have news for you, this is the best time of year to buy a horse. And when they got their hooks on the cannibalistic Devil-worshipping devil-red Indians of east India, who had hordes of gold and mines full of silver just waiting to steal, the illegal-aliens-but-what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it Spanish pulled out the stops of cruelty and horror, enslaving Indios of all tribes and treating them like shit, while outlawing all religions other than the True Faith, causing having non-white skin or not speaking Spanish to become a badge of inferiority, inculcating a prejudice that sadly persists to this day, with seemingly every Mexican claiming not to be Indio but Spanish, even if they got maybe a fraction of a drop of it in their veins in their imagination, even though the Roman Catholic Church actually encouraged intermarriage, officially pronouncing a person with even one drop of white to be white, which later become a major problem with the German and Norman-descended English, who not only rejected the Catholic Church, but twisted the Bible they thumped to officially pronounce a person with even one drop of non-white to be non-white, which later proved that Elvis was black and was trying to seduce their white wimmin with Devil Music. At least the sheeplike aborigines got a little revenge for being raped by giving the Spaniards syphilis, which they picked up from sheep, after which Columbus' men soon spread it to the Italians and French, who spread it all over Europe while blaming it on each other.

In 1492 the pop. of the American Continent (North and South America) was 15M-100M, including 7M-45M in South America, 7M-30M in Mexico and the Caribbean islands, and 1M-18M in the U.S. and Canada. They spoke 1K+ languages, and were organized into 500+ tribes, ranging from the Inca in Peru, the Arawakan-speaking tribes around the Caribbean Sea, incl. the Taino (AKA Lucayans in the Bahamas) in the West Indies and Fla., the Mayans in Central America (Mesoamerica), the Aztecs in Mexico, ruled by emperor Ahuizotl (-1502), the Zapotecs in the Oaxaca Valley of SE Mexico, the Chichimeca tribes in the Gran Chichimeca plateau in NC Mexico, the Cumbia, Panteca and Coixcas in Cihuatlan (modern-day Zihuatanejo) in SW Mexico, the S Athabaskan-speaking Navajo (Navaho) ("great fields [of Tewa]"), Apache, and Quechan (Yuma) (pr. kwuh-tsan) in the SW U.S., the Lakota Sioux (Teton) ("adder", "enemy") and their enemies the Crow (Apsaaalooke) (Absaroka), the Tanoan-speaking Kiowas ("grizzly bear") on the Great American Plains, the Shoshone, Flathead (Salish) (the people"), Bannock, Ute, Arapahoe (Arapaho), Blackfoot, Dakota E of Detroit, Mich., and Sioux-speaking Mandan around the Missouri River; the Algonquian-speaking tribes in North America (known for the birch-bark canoe, and the tomahawk, from the Algonqian words "cutting utensil"), incl. the potlach-loving Kwakiutl in SW Canada, the Algonquian-speaking Anishinabe, Cheyenne (Suhtai) (Sutaio) (Tsitsistas) of the Great Plains, Anishinaabe (Algonquian)-speaking Chippewa (Ojibwe) (Ojibwa) around Lake Superior, Delaware (Lenape), ("real men") along the Delaware River, Iroquois-speaking Erie around Lake Erie, Sac (Sauk) and Fox around Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, Iroquois-speaking Huron (Wyandot) (Wendat), Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) ("people of the long house"), Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora ("hemp gatherers") (Va.-N.C.), Algonquian-speaking Kickapoo ("stands here and there") (C and S Wisc.), Iroquois-speaking Mohawk ("people of the flint place") in the Mohawk Valley of upstate N.Y., Algonquian-speaking Narragansett ("on a small cape") in Rhode Island, Ottawa (Odawa) ("traders") on the Ottawa River in Ontario and Quebec, Alongquian-speaking Shawnee (AKA Savannah Indians), Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannock (Conestoga), and Wampanoag (Wopanaak) (Massasoit) ("eastern people") in E North America, the Athabascans, Eskimo (Inuit) ("eaters of raw flesh") ("the people"), Aleut (Unangan) (islands off the Alaskan Peninsula), Haida, and Tlingit in N Canada and Alaska; the Bella Coola (Nuxalk) in British Columbia (known for a religion with two heavens and two hells, and a female creator called Qama'itsa); in SE North America the 7-clan Iroquoian-speaking Cherokees of the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains in N.C., S.C., Tenn., Ga. and Ala., the Muskogean-speaking Creeks (Muskogee) (Muscogee) of Ala. and Ga. (#2 most powerful tribe S of New York after the Cherokees), the chickee-building Seminoles in Fla. (offshoot of the Creeks), the Yamasees, Chocktaws (Choctaws), Chickasaws, Natchez, and Houmas; the Siouan-speaking Yuchis (Uchees) (Euchees), and Catawbas ("people of the river"). Turn around now and find someplace else to get your medicine? Afraid not. Grab your bag and book now at Southwest dot com.

On May 4, 1493 (June 28 Gregorian) Pope #215 (since 1492) Alexander VI (1431-1503) (Rodrigo Borgia, a Catalan Spaniard from Valencia, father of boy toy Lucrezia Borgia, whose mistress since 1489, 18-y.-o. Giulia Farnese, known for long golden hair reaching to the floor was dubbed La Bella and the Bride of Christ, and of whom it was said "Ten papacies wouldn't have sufficed to satisfy all his cousins" as he handed out lucrative posts to them) settled the turf war, issuing the bull Inter Cetera Divina, dividing the New World between Portugal and Spain along a N-S line 100 leagues W of the Cape Verde islands, giving Portugal Africa and the E side of South America, but since they didn't realize yet that most of South America lies way east of North America, Spain ended up with most of the New World in both North and South America.

In 1501 the Spanish (Castilian) crown authorized the horrible African slave trade under its monopoly, giving permission to Flemish, German, Dutch, Genoan and Portuguese merchants to engage in it, and in 1502 the first African slaves in America arrived in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (modern-day Dominican Republic) (guess who ran the Inquisition, the Dominicans), ordered by newly-appointed (1502-9) Hispaniola gov. Nicolas de Ovando y Caceres (Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres) (1460-1518), who in 1503 began distributing enslaved aborigines to encomiendas (Spanish-run fiefdoms of Indian slaves) to work the gold mines in Santo Domingo, which became the model for all them pesky New World savages, his own hyper-cruelty reducing the pop. of the West Indies aborigines from 500K in 1492 to 60K in 1507, pardon me while I vomit. No wonder the haughty Spanish (who prefer to just be called proud) love to dance that Flamenco dance - they are practicing grinding some helpless Indio or African face into the floor while the crowd claps and cheers and swigs Sangria, you had to be there, but we all had a face fiesta.

In 1507 the name "America" is first used by German cleric-cartographer Martin Waldseemueller (Waldseemüller) (1470-1520) of the Monastery of Saint-Die-des-Vosges in Lorraine, France in his Cosmographiae Introductio in honor of Amerigo Vespucci; it contains a world map titled Universalis Cosmographia incl. the first depiction of the Western Hemisphere, showing America as an island surrounded by water, and saying "It is fitting that this fourth part of the world, inasmuch as Americus discovered it, be called Amerige, or let us say, land of Americi, that is, America"; the depiction of a body of water to the W of America before the discovery of the Pacific Ocean remains a modern mystery; on Apr. 30, 2007 (500th anniv.) it is officially given to the U.S. by German chancellor Angela Merkel.

On Mar. 1, 1528 Italian Florentine explorer (sailing under the French flag) Giovanni da Verrazano (Verrazzano) (1485-1527), sent by Francis I of France to explore the North Am. coast between Fla. and Newfoundland in hopes of finding a passage to the Pacific Ocean lands near Cape Fear; on Apr. 17 after sailing S along the S.C. coast, turning N, discovering the Outer Banks of N.C. (thinking that it splits North Am. in two with the "Sea of Verrazano"), then missing Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River, he discovers the mouth of the Hudson River and New York Bay, and anchors in the Narrows of New York Harbor between Staten Island and Long Island (home of the Manhasset, Shinnecock, Patchogue and Montauk Indians), where a party of Lenape arrive in a canoe "clad with fowl feathers of diverse feathers. They came towards us very cheerfully, making great shouts of admiration, showing us where we might come to land most safely with our boat"; thinking that the Hudson River is a freshwater lake, he follows the S coast of Long Island past Block Island Sound, then records an island about the size of Rhodes (Rhode Island in Narragansett Bay near modern-day Newport?), where he meets "two kings more beautiful in form and stature than can possibly be described" (Massasoit's great-grandfather?); he then heads to the coast of Maine, then Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, then back to France - the first wop-dago in New York Harbor, and in a stolen vehicle?

From 1560-1600 240K Spaniards emigrated to the Americas, incl. a number of conversos (Spaniards of Jewish ancestry); meanwhile the lucky few, incl. a brother of St. Teresa of Avila returned with fortunes.

In 1571 Spanish explorers in Mexico discover the wild turkey, and carry some to Europe, so that the Pilgrims are familiar with them before they arrive in America in 1620.

Meanwhile the English were content with pirating the big fat elephantine Spanish treasure galleons on their way to the mother country, keeping them from being interested in the hard work of settlement and conquest in North America for a century. On Apr. 27, 1584 after English geographer cleric Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616) began writing books inciting the English to begin colonizing North America, Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) sent an expedition, which landed in Roanoke Island, Virginia on July 4; too bad, by 1590 the settlers went injun, leaving the word "Croatoan" carved into a post at their fort. In 1598 Hakluyt began pub. his 3-vol. Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation, talking about how "valiant youths rusting [from] lack of employment" could flourish in America and create industry that "would yield unto us all the commodities of Europe, Africa and Asia", or better yet, discover gold.

The original Don't Be a Paleface? The foolhearty Anglo whites take a dare in Injunland a little too early? In July 1587 after John White (1540-93) (half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh) visits the North Carolina area and returns with shocking but cool, twisted-to-Euro-prejudices paintings of the half-naked but partly civilized and hence useful Indians (hence kinda a little bit white?), he leads a party of 116 English settlers (90 men, 17 women, 9 children) and lands on Roanoke Island off the N.C. coast; on Aug. 18 Virginia Dare (1587-) is born to Gov. John White's daughter Ellinor and Ananias Dare, becoming the first white European child born in the Am. colonies (don't think Heidi Klum and Seal?); wasting no time to make the place liveable, the colonists brew their own ale from corn; on Aug. 27 Gov. White leaves for England with a skeleton crew of 15 to seek help and supplies, leaving instructions that if the colonists are forced to leave in his absence they should inscribe their destination in a "conspicuous place"; too bad, the war between England and Spain keeps him from returning until 1590; the paintings start out circulating in the hands of the elite only, but eventually get made into prints which circulate in Europe for two cents., forming their main impression of Am. Indians; meanwhile white men's diseases (smallpox, typhus, measles) begin their genocidal effect on the defenseless pop., aggravated by a drought lasting until 1589. On Aug. 18, 1590 a relief expedition reaches the Roanoke Colony and finds it deserted, with the word "Croatoan" carved on a post, indicating that they had gone to Croatoan Island to the S to live with the friendly Hatteras tribe, which in 1650 migrates to the Lumber River Valley 200 mi. away, becoming the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, N.C.; at the time, though, nobody can figure out what happened to them, and suspect the worse; Roanoke Island becomes submerged by modern times - see that great episode of the Fess Parker TV series "Daniel Boone"?

In 1600 the world pop is 500M, doubling in the next two cents. The English Era of Expansion begins (ends 2050?) as surplus agriculture begins in England, causing it to climb out of famine and launch frontier settlement throughout the world.

In 1602 English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold (1572-1607) explores and names Cape Cod, and visits the Elizabeth Islands at the SW corner, incl. Martha's Vineyard, and visits and builds a small fort on Cuttyhunk Island, all of which pretty much makes him the discoverer of New England's coast?; he is visited by a delegation of 50 Indians in 9 canoes (including the father of Massasoit?), who sit on their heels "like greyhounds", enjoy all English foods offered except mustard, mimic English speech accurately, and give Gosnold a tobacco pipe to smoke; he harvests sassafras roots for use in treating syphilis and rheumatism, and abandons his fort after four Indians attack his men while foraging; he later becomes a capt. in Jamestown.

The French aren't far behind. On Mar. 15, 1603 Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635) arrives in North Am. on his first trip as an observer with a fur-trading expedition led by Francois Grave (Gravé) Du Pont (1560-1629), exploring the St. Lawrence River as a possible route to China and creating a map of it, then returning to France on Sept. 20 and writing a report for King Henry IV (his father?).

On July 25, 1603 Scottish king James V is crowned James I (1566-1625), king of (at his insistence) "Greater Britain" (the 44th British monarch), causing the Union of the Crowns, ending the Tudor Dynasty and beginning the Stuart Dynasty (ends 1714); Scotland has now had 63 kings and one queen (Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots) in an unbroken line, all being titled king or queen of Scots, not Scotland; Liz leaves him a £400K debt, having sold off many of her lands to avoid increasing taxes; a lifelong believer in the Divine Right of Kings who wants to be known as "Rex Pacificus" (peacemaker king), he seeks to end the Catholic-Protestant feud along with all wars with Spain and France, and effect a "stealth union" of England and Scotland, saying that the lack of a visible natural border proves that God intended it, then fills his inner circle with Scots while granting an amnesty in Ireland, going on to rule Scotland with "government by pen", sending written orders to his privy councillors in Edinburgh (setting up the first mail service between London and Edinburgh) while making his Scottish nobles visit him by traveling the Great North Road (after too many visits piss off the English, he limits the visits by issuing passports); in 1606 the Union Jack (Lat. "Jack" = James) (originally just called the British flag) is designed, bringing the British lion and the Scottish unicorn together (which is considered a bad omen as the two beasts are supposed to be mortal enemies); the Jacobean Age begins (ends 1625). In Jan. 1604 after deciding to order all Roman Catholic clergy to leave England for the Bye Bye Birdie Plot of 1603, James I declares Separatists (Independents) (Puritans) (some of whom want to leave England and create their own Bible-thumping state) to be troublemakers, with the soundbyte "I shall harry them out of the land"; too bad, he knows what they'll do if they leave, so he doesn't give them any help in leaving, refusing official permission for them to emigrate (Nunc Dimittis). The biggest contribution of James I was to sponsor the King James Bible (1604-11), which became a cultural weapon for the spreading English Empire, allowing them to browbeat mainly non-white natives with their racial and cultural superiority and lord it over them because they had a mission from the Lily-White God to convert "heathens" and "pagans", and their insanely illogical and complex English language was too hard for them ever to master, and even if they did, they had to master the King James Bible and Shakespeare, and learn the King's English to even be a player; no surprise, the Puritans refused to adopt it, sticking with the Calvinist Geneva Bible of 1575, until after taking over the govt. and lopping his son Charles I's head off in 1649, they mellowed and realized its superiority.

In 1604 French explorer Pierre du Guast (Gua), Sieur de Monts (1558-1628), a Protestant who served in the household of Henry IV, and who was appointed dir. of the Canadian Co. last year, then lt. gen. of Acadia this year discovers the 145-mi.-long Bay of Fundy, known for 60 ft. tides; Port Royal in Nova Scotia at the head of Annapolis basin (an inlet of the Bay of Fundy) is founded by the French as the capital of their province of Acadia (until 1713), becoming the oldest Euro settlement N of the Gulf of Mexico. The islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon (near the Grand Banks) are first occupied by the French; they end up as the last remnant of the French North Am. colonial empire, the center of the French Atlantic cod fisheries.

In 1605 a group of English traders under Capt. George Weymouth arrive in Patuxet (Plymouth) on Cape Cod, and kidnap some Indians to take back to England as slaves, incl. Patuxet Squanto (Tisquantum) (1585-1622).

On Apr. 10, 1606 having no resources for financing colonization like other countries do, James I charters the Plymouth Co. (made up of Plymouth merchants) for colonizing New England, and the Virginia Co. (of London merchants) for Va.; Virginia Co. begins the first mass advertising campaign in history to recruit "gentlemen" for emigration, making wild claims to recruit suckers, and sending 120 colonists to Jamestown, Va. in Dec. - did natural selection work to make Americans prone to believe in false advertising?

On May 1, 1607 English explorer Henry Hudson (1566-1611) makes his First Voyage in his 80-ton ship Hopewell to find a Northwest Passage, and makes it as far N as Willem Barents' Spitsbergen.

In early 1607 after leaving England last Dec. 20 in three ships, Godspeed, Susan Constant, captained by 1-armed Christopher Newport (1561-1618), and Discovery, captained by Bartholomew Gosnold (1571-1607) with 144 passengers and crew, then being pinned to the coast of England by howling winds for 6 weeks, the Virginia Co. expedition crosses the Atlantic by a southernly route and reprovisions in the West Indies, then heads N for Virginia, expecting to arrive in Apr.; too bad, they hit a tempest and sound for four days, looking for offshore shallows, and on Apr. 26 at 4 a.m. they sight land, enter Chesapeake Bay, then sail 40 mi. up the James River to hide from Spaniards; on May 14 they finally land after 144 days at sea at a marshy spot of land on the N shore of the James River (Jamestown Island in the river?) (140 mi. N of Roanoke), in an area surrounded by howling Indian settlements, naming it Jamestown in honor of James I, becoming the first permanent English settlement on the North Am. mainland; Capt. John Smith (1580-1631), who had accused the leaders ("our ignorant transporters") of incompetence, calling them "ten times more fit to spoil a commonwealth than... to begin one", was clapped in irons on the voyage and sentenced to hang but pardoned to be used in possible future fighting by Capt. Newport after a gallows is built on Nevis Island in the Caribbean, becoming the first English Am. inmate; most of the 107 male cavalier colonists are devout, have Puritan leanings and are strongly anti-Catholic, and allegedly first stop at Cape Henry at the mouth of the James River and plant a cross on the shore, claiming it for Christ; to keep investors from bugging out, the names of seven governing council members are carried in a sealed box, and opened upon landing, and capt. Edward Maria Wingfield (1550-1631) becomes the first pres. of the council; after living behind a crescent brush fence for two weeks they are attacked by 200 Indians, who are repelled with the help of the ship's cannon after two English die and 11 are wounded, causing them to decide to build a log palisade, and in June heat under frequent arrow attack they cut and split 600+ trees in 19 days and lay them in a 300-yard 2.5-ft.-deep triangular trench, after which "scarce 10 among us could either go or well stand, such extreme weakness and sickness oppressed us" (Smith); being "gentlemen adventurers" they don't know how to farm, hunt in the woods or even fish, forcing them to depend for food supplies on trade for copper scraps with the 30-tribe 14K-21K pop. Powhatan (Powatan) (Powhaten) (1545-1618) (pr. pow-uh-TAN) confederation of Algonquian Indians in the Tidewater area of E Va. between the James and York Rivers, led by 60-y.-o. Pawmunkey chief Powhatan, real name Wahunsonacock (sounds like?) (father of 11-y.-o. Pocahontas), whom Capt. Smith says "sat covered with a great robe made of raccoon skins, and all the tails hanging by" flanked by "two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red", and wearing long strings of pearls, presenting "such a grave and Majesticall countenance, as drave me into admiration to see such state in a naked Salvage", and to whom Smith later lies that they are merely visitors driven there to hide from the Spanish (ask Dr. D. James Kennedy how they only came to spread the gospel to the heathens?); too bad, the Powhatans want English swords and firearms, not just copper and them cool glass beads, and to make allies of them to fight other Indians, not to become tributaries to James I, and since the colony is owned by Walmart, er, the London Co., er, the Virginia Co., they have to show a profit for the stockholders back in the Big E, so in June Capt. Newport leaves for England with two ships carrying samples of clapboard and sassafras, leaving 104 settlers, all male (incl. some boys, cute cute cute?), who also attempt to hunt for precious minerals and plant cotton; too bad, a major drought lasting for seven years (1606-12) makes freshwater scarce, and being too lazy to dig a well, they have to drink from the Shi, er, James River (filled with you know what from the many Indian settlements upriver), giving them salt poisoning as well as dysentery to go with their typhoid, leading to the Starving Time of 1609-10; Smith goes around trading with the Indians and forcing them to give up their corn for his trinkets with terrorist tactics if necessary, until, in a magic moment for English-Indian relations, the arrogant prick is captured on one of his expeditions to explore and map the region, and held for 3-6 weeks in Dec. at the Injun capital of Werowocomoco ("place of chiefs") on the York River, where he attempts to outwit, outlast, and outthink them by claiming his compass is magic and that they can plant gunpowder next spring to grow their own; too bad, after springing his lie about being just visitors, Chief Powhatan (Wahunsonacock) orders the white devil's head pressed on a stone altar to beat out his brains with clubs, but in a second magic moment, his #1 most beautiful daughter out of 100+ wives, 13-y.-o. Pocahontas (1595-1617) ("frisky") ("undisciplined brat"?) (real name Matoaka or Amonute) (poke it up my hot what?), whom Smith says "much exceeded any of the rest of his people not only for feature, countenance and proportion... but for wit and spirit, the only Nonpareil of his country", intervenes and pleads for his life, causing the chief to adopt him and give him the honorary name of Nantaquoud, and offer him some nearby land; Smith doesn't recognize that the ceremony is only a ritual to impress him with the chief's authority after the big feast of oysters, turkey, and cornbread he just threw, and later writes that he and Poca had "a very mad affair"; instead of staying, he decides to stay s ingle and free, and returns to Jamestown, finding it on the verge of starvation, and in early Jan. she arrives with enough food to save their lives; later she saves his life again by sneaking through the forest alone at night to warm him of an ambush; they never actually hooked up or were an item, despite later romantic writers slobbering over forbidden interracial romance?

In 1607 Raleigh Gilbert of the Virginia Co. of Plymouth (Humphrey Gilbert's son) sails up the Kennebec River and lands at Koussinoc, the Indian name for present-day Augusta, Maine, founding a colony along the Sagadahoc River near the mouth of the Kennebec River called Popham (Sagadahoc) Colony (in modern-day Phippsburg, Maine), which only survives one winter, becoming the first colony in New England; it produces the first ocean-going ship built in America, the Virginia.

In Jan. 1608 Capt. Christopher Newport returns to the Va. Colony with 100 new settlers (incl. 30 gentlemen), finding only a third of the original settlers still alive (38 of 108). Gov. Wingfield is removed on charges of plotting with the Spanish, and Capt. John Smith again faces hanging (2nd time of two) in hours after his enemies get him charged with negligence for getting two of his men killed by Indians, and saves himself for the 2nd time; after he is spared, Smith has to stop some gentlemen eager to return to England from commandeering a ship by opening up with cannon and musket fire. Too bad, after being unloaded from Newport's ship a fire destroys most of the supplies, causing the Jamestown colonists to become totally dependent on the unfriendly Indians, and putting John Smith, who has established relations with them and has his own red babe to be elected pres. of the Jamestown colony council on Sept. 10 (until 1609); being fresh from wars against the Turks in Hungary and Turkey and knowing it all, he becomes a taskmasker, telling them "The greater part must be more industrious or starve", then quotes Apostle Paul, "He that will not work shall not eat", and writes his new Va. Co. bosses in England that there is no way the colony can pay for itself, there is no shortcut to China here, and the odds of survival are about 1 in 4; Pocahontas comes through for Smith by bringing bear meat, venison and other delicacies; the fort is expanded, and the interior wall is later removed, while Smith explores Chesapeake Bay. In spring 1508 150 English Puritan Separatists from Scrooby, led by minister John Robinson make a second attempt to depart England for the wonderful land of Virginia, er, the Netherlands, having to leave the women and children quick after the local militia arrive to stop them, and make it to Amsterdam, where the rest catch up to them several mo. later; after encountering other Separatist groups with divergent opinions, causing them to choose to travel to the red-bricked head-with-crown-shaped univ. town of Leiden, where the Dutch tolerance of loose morals and religious diversity makes them welcome as long as they do menial labor from dawn to dusk six days a week in the cloth industry; Robinson buys a house near the Pieterskerk, then sets up De Groene Poort (the green lane) in his garden, a cozy village of a dozen houses; too bad, their "chosen" English children begin turning Dutch, pissing them off, even though they triple their numbers by 1620. In Oct. 1608 the first women arrive in Jamestown, Mistress Forrest and her maid Anne Burras; Forrest dies within the year - dark forrest and burrass jokes here?

On July 3, 1608 Samuel de Champlain founds the French village of Quebec on the site of the abandoned village of Stadacona on the St. Lawrence and St. Charles Rivers, establishing the first permanent French settlement in North Am.; nearby 272-ft. Montmorency Falls is taller than Niagara Falls.

On May 23, 1609 James I grants a 2nd charter to Virginia, replacing the ineffective council with royal gov. Lord Delaware and an advisory council; they finally dig a well in Jamestown early in the year; in May Lord Delaware sends Sir Thomas Gates as interim gov., with nine ships and 500 passengers (promised free land after seven years of indentured servitude) and crew to reinvigorate and resupply Jamestown; the fleet is led by Capt. Sir George Somers (1554-1610) of the Sea Venture; Gates and Somers are shipwrecked on coral-ringed Bermuda (on the same lat. as Cape Hatteras), where they spend the winter enjoying the local fish, fowl and wild pigs, and build ships and reach Va. next May, leaving some English behind to settle Bermuda (Somers Isles) and build forts; meanwhile the rest of the fleet reaches Jamestown with 400 settlers, most of them "unruly gallants packed hether by their friends to escape il destinies", and they overwhelm the fragile balance of the 80 colonists they find there, just in time for the Starving Time; next year Somers returns to Bermuda and dies "of a surfeit in eating pig", which is later immortalized by Shakespeare in The Tempest.

In summer 1609 English explorer Henry Hudson (1566-1611) begins his Third Voyage to search for a Northwest Passage in the Dutch ship Half Moon (Halve Mein); on Aug. 28 after a budding mutiny of his crew causes him to reverse course and head toward the New World, he discovers Delaware Bay and the Delaware River; on Sept. 11 he discovers New York Bay, sailing into the Hudson River on Sept. 12 and founding New Amsterdam (renamed New York in 1664) on the Hudson River, while setting eyes upon the wooded island of Manhattan, from the Lenape word Mannahatta, meaning island of many hills; he makes the first Euro encounter with the Mohicans (Mahicans); upon returning to Europe he is arrested for sailing under another nation's flag - does that make him an illegal alien?

In Oct. 1609 an accident causes Capt. John Smith to receive a bad gunpowder burn, and he returns to England for treatment, just in time to avoid the Starving Time (his departure making it more certain?), and never sees Virginia again; Pocahontas is told he is dead, causing her to go nonlinear and avoid Jamestown for the next four years; just before leaving Smith pisses-off Powhatan chief Wahunsonacock for sacking a village and stealing half of its provisions on the eve of a harsh winter, and after he summons him to his lodge and offers to trade in peace, Smith tells him off, saying, "For your riches we have no use", and that "In... wars consist our chiefest pleasure". In winter 1609 Powhatan chief Wahunsonacock, fed up with the English (Smith) taking their food by force and subjecting them to famine, and knowing that Smith has taken a hike, cuts off trade with Jamestown then sieges their fort, trapping 500 inside over the winter, causing the Starving Time, where the pop. is reduced to 60 after all the livestock and horses (incl. dogs, cats, vermin) are eaten, and one man dines on (don't say eats?) his wife; forensic proof of cannibalism is not obtained until 2013; eight German and Polish craftsmen sent to manufacture glass turn wild and run off with the Indians?

In spring 1610 the Starving Time (begun 1609) ends, with only 60 Jamestown colonists surviving, reduced to cannibalism, "their bodies shrunk down almost to the skeleton, resembling corpses held upright by unseen marionette strings", and after English supply ships arrive, the First Thanksgiving is celebrated. In May 1610 interim Gov. Thomas Gates arrives in Jamestown from Bermuda, finds the starved remnant begging to give up and get out of Dodge, and in June they start down the James River, and are surprised to meet new gov. and capt.-gen. of Va. (appointed in Feb.) Thomas West, 3rd Baron de la Warr (1577-1618) (Lord Delaware) as he arrives with three ships and 150 men; after he persuades them to turn around and return, they go on to found the settlement of Henrico (Richmond) upstream of Jamestown at the falls, plus two more settlements downstream at the mouth of the James River; life is tough but they hang on with military discipline and strict martial law, with penalties for running away incl. shooting, burning, hanging and breaking on the wheel.

In 1612 commercial tobacco ("green gold") is first raised in Va. as a cash crop by John Rolfe (1585-1622), giving the colony a raison d'etre as a drug dealing supply base, causing it to reorganize with better supply lines and begin establishing satellite squatter settlements on Powhatan farmland, pissing them off; the first crop is the harsh and biting native variety, but he later switches to the more mild Spanish varieties and scores a commercial success, creating the first Am. cash cow; meanwhile the Indians begin going on the defensive as snaphance guns are introduced in this decade, elminating the need for separate matches, and the cleared land gives the English an advantage against Indians, who can shoot arrows five times as fast but need to hide behind trees; a lame attempt to capture English guns is the only loser's game they got left, and by the 18th cent. they are nearly landless and reluctantly adopt English ways, and by modern times the original 30 tribes are down to five, two on reservations; at least they get to stay?

You are my sunshine? In spring 1613 former Va. gov. Sir Thomas Dale and his men capture 17-y.-o. Pocahontas and hold her for a ransom of English prisoners, guns, and a boatload of corn, and when her daddy pays it they keep her anyway; William Strachey calls her "well featured but wanton" after seeing her do cartwheels naked; to fend off war (or his libidinous feelings?), prosperous widower John Rolfe then writes to Dale apologizing for being in love with a you know what and begging for permission to marry her, and her aging and increasingly docile pop Powhatan (Wahunsonacock) acquiesces; she is baptized in the Anglican church and given the name Lady Rebecca, and becomes the first Amerindian woman to marry an Englishman - another high maintenance woman not wanting no maintenance man?

The power of Powhatan outpowers English racism? On Apr. 15, 1614 Pocahontas, daughter of the Powhatan chief marries English tobacco tycoon John Rolfe in Jamestown's church; they have one son, Thomas; for centuries distinguished Virginians boast of their descent from the "Indian princess". In Apr. 1614 Capt. John Smith leads several ships on a voyage from London to the Maine and Mass. Bay areas, naming them New England with the approval of Prince Charles, and creating the first detailed Map of New England; Thomas Hunt, one of the ship capts. decides to fill his ships with Nauset Indians to sell as slaves in Malaga, Spain, turning the Nausets against the English and damaging English-Indian relations for years; one of them is Squanto (Tisquantum), who spends five years in Spain, England, and Newfoundland (until 1619), learning Paleface Talk (English). The long-awaited Promised Land for International Jewry? In 1614 after setting out late in 1613 to New York harbor in the Tijger (Tiger), Dutch navigator Adriaen (Aerjan) Block (1567-1627) anchors in the harbor, his ship burns, and he and his crew camp on Manhattan Island, where they build the Onrust (Restless), then explore Long Island Sound N beyond Cape Cod, discovering the Connecticut River and Block Island (9 mi. SW of Point Judith, Rhode Island); he claims Connecticut (Algonquin "Quinnehtukqut" = "beside the long tidal river") for the Netherlands, and names it Rhode Island for its red clay; he later pub. Figurative Map of 1614, the first to show Manhattan Island as separate from Long Island; fur traders from New Netherland set up Ft. Goede Hoop (Ft. Good Hope) at the confluence of the Connecticut and Park Rivers, which later becomes Hartford, Conn.; Dutch explorer Cornelis Hendricksz then takes the Onrust and begins exploring the Delaware Bay and the Lower Delaware River, after which on Oct. 11 the New Netherland Co. receives an exclusive patent for four voyages to be undertaken over three years to discover territories between the 40th and 4th parallels (until June 1618), causing Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (May) (Meij) to begin exploring the Lower Delaware River on his ship Blijde Boodschap (Joyful Message).

In 1616 John Rolfe, backed by the Virginia Co. makes a promotional trip to England to show off his English-speaking Christian wife Pocahontas (Lady Rebecca) and their infant son Thomas, and to sell the English on his tobacco and attract more capital to their venture, despite King James I's aversion to it; she and the dozen other Indians he brings are invited to visit the royal court, but Rolfe is snubbed; Pocahontas charms Queen Anne, who accedes to a letter from Capt. John Smith to receive her as Algonquian loyalty, but she doesn't change the king's prejudices against ahem, Indians; she becomes the toast of the town, and sits for a mighty-white portrait by an anon. Englishman (dated Aug. 21) wearing her stiff lace collar and high hat, and holding an ostrich plume fan; Smith waits months then calls on her, and she turns her back on him for two hours before telling him that he had betrayed her people and how he had hurt her by leaving unannounced and never sending word, making her think he was dead; weeks later, she and half of the Indians come down with various fatal European diseases while aboard a ship on the Thames River bound for Jamestown, and she dies in Gravesend in Mar. 1617; Smith, who never marries finally tells his Story of Pocahantas and how she single-handedly saved him from the terrible fate of being brained in 1607, and pub. it in 1624.

In 1617 the first English convicts are sent into servitude in the English colonies, and the first church is built in Jamestown.

In 1617-18 the Indian Plague of 1617-18 in New England wipes out 90% of the pop., causing James I of England to give thanks to "God Almighty in his great goodness and bounty toward us" for sending "this wonderful plague among the salvages"; the Pilgrims see their chance?

Oh come let us adore him, Christ the White Man's Lord? On Sept. 6-25, 1618 the Great Comet of 1618 (one of three this year) appears in the skies over Europe, causing Millennium Fever to whip up, esp. with the Puritans of Leiden, Holland, who use it as their excuse to throw caution to the wind and travel to survival-of-the-fittest North Am. to plant a godly English civilization, while the rest of the Euro Christians begin the apocalyptic super-cruel Thirty Years' War (ends 1648); in England the comet is used to diss the king's proposed marriage alliance with Spain; you had to be there, but the intoxicating power of the new King James Bible over all English Bible-thumpers actually makes them think they are the Chosen People, with a language not tracing back to Rome and Roman popery, with the butchery of the greedy Roman Catholics in South Am. proving that their brand of white is right; in 1662 Phineas Pratt writes "In the year 1618 there appeared a blazing star over Germany that made the wise men of Europe astonished there."

In 1619-1622 the Virginia Co. sends 3.6K settlers to Va., and only 600 survive - this time Darwin may have something?

In spring 1619 English explorer Thomas Dermer sails S from Maine in a small boat with Squanto to return to his home at Patuxet, site of modern-day Plymouth, and finds all 2K wiped out by the plague (smallpox?) (viral hepatitis?), then takes Dermer to Nemasket, 15 mi. inland, finding several family members alive and well, then takes him to visit chief Massasoit and his brother Quadequina of the Pokanokets, and talks them into returning the French captives of 1615, then leaves Squanto to spend the winter in Va. - congratulations victor nightingale? In June 1619 the Puritan Separatists of Scrooby, England secure a patent from the Virginia Co., and William Bradford sells his house to help pay for the voyage; meanwhile news arrives from Robert Cushman of London that another group of 180 English Separatists from Emden, Holland led by Mr. Blackwell had tried to reach North Am. during the winter, and all but 50 died of the "the flux, and also want of fresh water"; the Dutch get wind of their plans and offer to help them set up a Dutch settlement, and when they refuse secretly work to block them from leapfrogging into an area they want for themselves? On July 30, 1619 after economic success causes Dale's Code to be relaxed, and the Va. Co. promises settlers the "rights of Englishmen", incl. a rep. assembly, and new gov. Sir George Yeardley (Eardley) (Yardley) (1587-1627) the House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in Am. (gov., six councilors, 22 burgesses elected by property owners, all male) meets in the church at Jamestown and deliberates for five days, "sweating & stewing, and battling flies and mosquitoes"; member Walter Shelley dies from the heat; they discuss Indian relations, church attendance, gambling and drunkness, and tobacco prices; the die is cast for the WASP pattern of democratic capitalism for themselves and chattel slavery for blacks?; they hold a Thanksgiving on the banks of the James River on what later becomes Berkeley Plantation, birthplace of Benjamin Harrison; having exported 10 tons of tobacco by this year, the Jamestown colonists can afford to import their first African (Negro) slaves (which are still called indentured servants?) and women, which arrive on the Treasurer and Dutch man-of-war White Lion (captained by English privateers) from Angola in late Aug.; they were originally captured in North Africa by African Muslims, who enslave 1M Euro whites from 1500-1800, and hold slave auctions in Egypt until 1885; they pay for the "20 and odd Negars" "victuale" (food), and for the 90 women brought by another English ship with 120 lbs. of tobacco for each (5 tons); the blacks are slaves captured from the Portuguese slave ship Juan Bautista en route from Angola to Veracruz (there are already 200K African slaves in the Americas); by the 1640s several of the blacks are listed as landowners, indicating they had attained freedom, but after 1640 they begin to be treated as chattel, and outnumber white indentured servants by the 1670s -by which time their ass is grass and their white owners have the lawnmowers? In 1619 the Jamestown Colony enacts the first law in North Am. ordering farmers to grow Indian hemp (Cannabis sativa); mandatory laws are enacted in Mass. in 1631, Conn. in 1632, and the Chesapeake colonies in the 1700s; in 1631 hemp becomes legal tender in most of the British colonies until the early 1800s.

Country	Leader	From	To
England	James I (James VI of Scotland) (1566-1625)	1603	Mar. 27, 1625
France	Louis XIII of France (1601-43)	1610	May 14, 1643
Germany	HRE Ferdinand II (1578-1637)	1619	Dec. 22, 1636
Russia	Tsar Michael I Romanov (1596-1645)	1613	July 12, 1645
Papacy	Pope Paul V (1550-1621)	1605	Jan. 28, 1621

In summer 1620 Thomas Dermer returns from Va. to Cape Cod, and finds the Pokanokets full of "inveterate malice to the English" after an English ship had arrived in Narragansett Bay in the spring and massacred a large number of Indians after first inviting them into their ship; after Squanto saves him at Nemasket (Plymouth), they go to Martha's Vineyard, where Epenow's men mortally wound him and take Squanto prisoner (his name comes from their god of death Tisquantum, pissing them off, because they are good Indians, worshipping the creator Kietan and familiar spirit Hobbamock, invoked by the shamans called powwows), then giving him to Massasoit at Pokanoket, just in time for the arrival of the you know what; Dermer dies a few weeks later in Va. - shall we say 7:30 at the old oak? White English America starts as a church relocation project to a hostile land where they aren't invited or wanted? On Sept. 16, 1620 (Sept. 6 Old Style) the Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, captained by dwarfish (less than 5 ft.?) red-haired soldier Myles (Miles) "Capt. Shrimp" Standish (1584-1656) (who takes his wife Rose along) (selected after the Pilgrims reject John Smith as too bossy and expensive) and mastered since 1609 by 50-y.-o. Christopher Jones (1570-1622) of Rotherhithe on the Thames River in C SE London, with 102 passengers and a crew of 27 incl. Capt. John Smith (1580-1631) (who had been captured by the Pacha of Nalbrits when fighting the Turks - first American encounter with a Muslim tyrant?), pilot and first mate John Clark (1575-1623), Robert Coppin (1590-?) (pilot and first mate?), barber-surgeon Giles Heale (-1653), and 21-y.-o. cooper (prime candidate for conversion and marriage?) John Alden (1599-1687); the True Blue Puritans from Leiden are led by elder and spiritual leader William Brewster (1568-1644) (returned from hiding), fustian (corduroy worker) William Bradford (1590-1657) (who coins the term Pilgrims, because they had been toughened up by their tribulations in England and weaned from England by their stay in Holland, hence can't be discouraged into going home again?), wealthy Pilgrim deacon (voyage organizer) John Carver (1576-1621) (along with his wife Katherine and five servants), Stephen Hopkins (1581-1644) (the only Mayflower passenger with prior New World experience, incl. bein shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609 and serving several years in Jamestown Colony under Capt. John Smith) and his indentured servants Edward Leister (Liester) and Edward Doty (Doten) (1598-1655) (who get in Plymouth's first duel on June 18, 1621), the Winslow Family (direct ancestors of TLW?), brothers Gilbert Winslow (1600-1631) and Edward Winslow (1595-1655) (one of the 15 Pilgrims who brought servants or children, and one of eight who had the honorable distinction of Mister), and Edward's wife (since 1618) Elizabeth Barker Winslow (1595-1621), plus two dogs (a male spaniel and a mastiff bitch) seeking religious liberty yada yada yada; the ship carries three copies of the Geneva Bible, which they prefer to the state-backed King James Bible; during the voyage a sailor (who had been mocking them for seasickness and God gave him what's coming to him?) and young servant die, while everybody suffers from scurvy; three women are preggers, Elizabeth Hopkins (1585-1644) (who bears son Oceanus on the voyage), Susanna White (-1675) (who on Nov. 25 bears son Peregrine White (1620-1704) aboard the Mayflower in Provincetown Harbor, becoming the first English child born in New England, and after William White dies on Feb. 21, 1621 and Elizabeth Winslow dies on Mar. 24, 1621 she marries Edward Winslow on May 12, 1621, becoming the first bride in Plymouth), and Mary Allerton (1616-99), who has a stillborn son aboard the anchored Mayflower on Dec. 22, and dies in Plymouth on Nov. 28, 1699, becoming the last surviving Mayflower passenger; Edward Winslow's brother John Winslow (1597-1674) (TLW's ancestor?) arrives on Nov. 9, 1621 on the Fortune, and on Oct. 12, 1624 marries Mayflower passenger Mary Chilton; after ignorantly bucking the Gulf Stream the whole way, averaging 2 mph, and straying off course in a storm, they head S then encounter rough waters, and after "We could not now take time to further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer" (William Bradford) (they run out of beer after daily rations of 1 gal. each?) they head back N, and finally on Thur. Nov. 19 (Nov. 9 Old Style) after 65 days at sea arrive at the "back side" of fishhook-shaped Cape Cod (James), 220 mi. N of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River, and set out S to reach it, but after attempting the treacherous Pollack Rip between the S end of the fishook and Nantucket Island they give up and return to Cape Cod in "the northern parts of Virginia".

On Dec. 25, 1620 (Dec. 15 Old Style), after 1 mo. of searching for a livable location, 99 mainly sick and scurvy-ridden Old (First) Comers leave Provincetown Harbor, and on Dec. 26 enter Plymouth Harbor, anchoring at Goose Point at the end of Long Beach 1.5 mi. from the 200-ton granite Plymouth Rock at the end of Town Brook, then on Dec. 30 after more exploring found Plimoth (Plymouth) Plantation, the first permanent colony settled by WASP families, protected by 165-ft. Fort Hill, and all conveniently cleared of the 1K-2K Indian pop. by the plague, whose bleached skulls and bones are scattered around, along with who-knows-how-old "memory holes" on roads commemorating historical events; Chief Epenow of Martha's Vineyard assumes that the whites were sent from Virginia to avenge the attack on Thomas Dermer; William Bradford's wife Dorothy May Bradford and 3-y.-o. son John Bradford fall overboard on the moored Mayflower and drown (Puritan suicide?); Mary Chilton (1607-79) allegedly becomes the first female passenger to step ashore at Plymouth, jumping out of the boat and wading ashore onto Plymouth Rock in Thievish Harbor, and on Oct. 12, 1624 she marries Edward Winslow's 3rd brother John Winslow (1597-1674), who was on the ill-fated Speedwell and arrives on Nov. 3, 1621 on the Fortune; on Mon. Dec. 25 (Old Style) (Jan. 4, 1621) they erect the first house frame on Cole's Hill, the hill where they buried their dead the first winter; the Mayflower remains anchored in Plymouth Harbor until next Apr.; the more juicy Massachusetts Bay to the N (future home of Boston) waits for future Puritan squatters; only 72 years to the Salem Witch Trials.

The original one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind? On Nov. 21, 1620 (Sat.) (Nov. 11 Old Style) the Pilgrims drop anchor on Long Point in sheltered Provincetown Harbor on the underside of the tip of the fishook (across Cape Cod Bay from Plymouth), where they stop because of the presence of freshwater streams even though Bradford calls it a "hideous and desolate wilderness" filled with sandhills; on Nov. 21 before disembarking (which they won't do on a Sun.), after the strangers begin grumbling that the religious kooks are getting them in trouble for settling outside the area of their patent, and the Puritans are worried that they need a civil covenant for governing the motley bunch that is not bound by their spiritual covenant, 41 Pilgrim Fathers (all male) (the rest are too sick?) sign the Bible-drenched Mayflower Compact, agreeing that "for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and country... do these present solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation... and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws... as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience"; thus is layed the foundation for constitutional democracy in America with the first covenant-compact form of govt. since ancient Israel? (a mini-Declaration of Independence?); it is only meant to be temporary; John Carver is chosen as the first (1-year term) gov. of the colony; the first boat with 16 well-armed men lands and collects cedar wood, then returns to the ship to make their first fire in weeks; on Nov. 23 they disembark, and the men fix up their shallop (small boat), which had been disassembled for the voyage, while the women wash clothes in a pond, founding the tradition of Monday as Wash Day in New England; on Nov. 25-27 they make a land expedition of the tip of the fishhook, discovering Pilgrim Spring and Corn Hill (where they steal 36 ears of buried Indian Nauset seed corn, "Some yellow, and some red, and others mixed with blue"), and see their first Indians, 5-6 with a dog, who run), followed on Dec. 6-9 by a shallop expedition in Cold Harbor, discovering Pilgrim Lake, getting frozen feet (hence the name Cold Harbor), stumbling on the Indian grave of a blonde-haired Frenchman and child, then some Indian wigwams, which they loot, and on Dec. 7 finally getting attacked in Eastham by 30 Wampanoag in the First Encounter, who shoot yard-long arrows at them but retreat after being fired on without injuring anybody; on Dec. 16-22 they make a 3rd expedition W (clockwise) across the 65-mi. length of Cape Cod peninsula to the NW end, discovering Clark Island, named for pilot John Clark, and the site of Plymouth, where they don't mention any rock?

On Mar. 26, 1621 (Mar. 16 Old Style) (Fri.) tall naked Wampanoag spokesman Samoset (1590-1653) (his English-given name of Somerset?), a sachem from Pemaquid Point in Maine near Monhegan Island (who learned English from English fishermen) unexpectedly visits the winter-decimated Pilgrims (52 of 102 dead, incl. Mayflower gov. Christopher Martin in Jan., causing the survivors to conceal the corpses in secret graves to fool the Indians), and walks right up to their homes, and when stopped issues the famous soundbyte "Welcome, Englishmen!"; he tells them how their harbor's name is Patuxet and had been inhabited then wiped out by plague, and that another Indian, the once-kidnapped and well-traveled local Patuxet Squanto (Tisquantum) (1585-1622), who had been in Spain, Newfoundland, and London, and can speak better English is with chief Massasoit in Pokanoket 40 mi. SW, and stays overnight with a half freaked-out English family; on Apr. 1 (Mar. 22 Old Style) after his powwows try in vain to make the English devils disappear with a 3-day swamp meeting, and cagey Squanto tells him the English have a secret WMD of plague and shouldn't be messed with but rather cultivated to help him fight the Narragansetts, bear-greased dark red-faced Massasoit and his son Quadequina visit Plymouth Colony with 60 intimidating warriors, and after being greeted outside the town on a hill by sole rep. Edward Winslow (1595-1655), who tells him that King James of England greets him "with words of love and peace", and trying in vain to make a trade for his sword and armor, he agrees to meet Gov. John Carter, with Winslow held as hostage and Squanto acting as interpreter, and after being served vodka which, combined with Squanto telling him that barrels of gunpowder in a storehouse actually contain plague, makes him sweat and tremble, the duped "Indian King" signs a 6-point peace treaty, which lasts 50 years, with Winslow acting as the colony's initial rep. as well as being 2nd in command; the Indians use wampum ("white shell beads") (tubular shell beads made from the purple spot in quahog clamshells and white channeled whelk shells) for sacred ceremonies as well as for recording stories, but the English soon turn it into money. On Apr. 15, 1621 (Apr. 5 Old Style) with their numbers down to 52 but stabilized, the Mayflower sails for England (18 sailors dead), with cooper John Alden staying in Plymouth; on Apr. 18 Gov. John Carver (b. 1576) dies after lapsing into a coma on a hot day in the fields, and after the colony's first state funeral they elect William Bradford as gov. #2 (reelected 30 times until 1656), but since he's sick they appoint Puritan widower Isaac Allerton (1583-1659) (ancestor of U.S. presidents Zachary Taylor and FDR) as his asst.; on May 16 the Mayflower arrives in Rotherhithe after making use of westerlies, then sails for France with a cargo of salt, after which master Christopher Jones dies on Mar. 15, 1622 in England, causing the ship to lay idle for 2 years and then be broken up for scrap in 1624 after being appraised at £128. On May 22, 1621 (May 12 Old Style) Edward Winslow (whose wife Elizabeth died on Apr. 3 two days after the big meeting with Massasoit) and Susanna White (whose husband William died on Mar. 3) become the first couple in Plymouth Colony to marry, and claiming that the Gospels nowhere say a minister should conduct a wedding, they copy Dutch custom and have a civil wedding, starting a tradition. On June 3, 1621 (worried about them pesky English?) the Dutch West India Co. is chartered for the New Netherlands (Netherland) to share world trade with the Dutch East India Co. by Peter Minuit's Antwerp friend Willem Usselincx (1567-1647), who prefers colonization of the New World to profit, and gives up after the Dutch estates-gen. don't support him; the co. later acquires a monopoly in Africa the North Am. coast from Newfoundland to Chesapeake Bay; in 1645 not-so-useless Usselincx utters the Immortal New York, New York Soundbyte: "It is because of foreigners that the country will be peopled, because its might is derived mostly from those who come from abroad and settle, marry and multiply here. If one were to remove the foreigners, their children and grandchildren from the large cities of Holland, the remaining residents would be fewer in number than those removed" - never mind those English squatters? On July 2, 1621 Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins make the Pilgrims' first diplomatic visit to Massasoit's home at Pokanoket (near modern-day Warren, R.I.). In mid-Oct. 1621 after with the help of good weather and the know-how of indispensible native Patuxet Squanto (Tisquantum) (1585-1622) (the first American Iron Chef in survival techniques?) (who first wows them by showing them how to dig up his trademark eels in shore mud, then how to use herring as fertilizer, and plant beans and squash with the corn to act as shade and prevent weeds) the Plymouth Colony brings in a bumper crop of veggies, lumber, and furs, it celebrates its first 3-day Thanksgiving along with Chief Massasoit and 90 warriors, who aren't invited but hear gunfire in connection with the feast, show up to see what's up, and end up becoming their niggers, supplying them with five deer, wild turkey, fish, beans, squash, corn soup, cornbread, and berries to go with their venison, duck, goose, lobster, mussels, grapes and plums?; they don't sit at tables but squat in front of fires?; the Pilgrims say the prayer from Psalm 107 (AKA Birkat Ha-Gomel) after a book by English scholar Henry Ainsworth uses Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides to show its applicability; on Nov. 9 (3 weeks later) the ship Fortune, under master Thomas Barton arrives with 35 new colonists, incl. Thomas Prence (1599-1673), throwing them back into danger of starvation; on the way home it loses its cargo of furs and timber to a French privateer; meanwhile the colony gets a land patent from the Council for New England; after John Carver's wife dies five weeks after him, their servant John Howland (1592-1672) (who fell overboard on the way, and held on until rescued) inherits some of the estate and goes on to become one of Plymouth's leading citizens; at the first big Nothanksgiving the Pequots of Cape Cod offer the white settlers a local fruit that grows in acidic bogs which they call "i-bimi" (bitter fruit) and use to make pemmican; the Pilgrims groove on it and name it for the cranes which like to eat it, calling it the craneberry (cranberry) (bounceberry because it bounces when ripe), making sauces and tarts from it.

In 1621 the English attempt to colonize Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, with poet-courtier Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1567-1640) receiving a huge land grant from James I, which is later confirmed by Charles I; too bad, after a war with France in 1627-9, the 1629 Treaty of Susa (Suza) between France and the duchy of Savoy cedes the territory to France in 1632, leaving Alexander deeply in debt, although he is created viscount of Stirling and Lord Alexander of Tullibody in 1630 as a sop.

In Feb. 1622 the first person is hanged in the Plymouth Colony - hairy or smoothy? On Mar. 22 the Powhatan tribal confederation of Virginia, led by Wahunsonacock's brother and successor Opechancanough (Opchanacanough) (1554-1646), pissed-off at seeing the stinking palefaces progress from trading posts to permanent settlement turn on the whites in the Virginia Colony and launch dawn raids on 28 plantations and settlements along the James River, massacring 347 out of 1,240 settlers, incl. John Rolfe; Jamestown escapes after being warned by a converted Christian Indian boy; after one survivor laments that "besides them they killed, they burst the heart of all the rest", the English use this as an excuse to institute a genocide policy of what the governor's council calls "perpetual enmity". On Aug. 10 James I grants the Province of Maine between the Kennebec and Piscataqua Rivers to English naval cmdr. Sir Ferdinando Gorges (1565-1647) and Conception Bay (Newfoundland) gov. Capt. John Mason (1586-1637). In Nov. after using his friendship with the Pilgrims to control other Indians, causing his tribe to demand his return so they can kill him, the English stall, and Squanto (b. 1585) dies.

In winter 1622-3 after the town of Plymouth is fortified, another cruddy harvest causes the colony to suffer its Second Starving Time, in which hundreds die, causing Gov. William Bradford to write the soundbyte: "They began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop"; up till now they required that "All profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" be placed in the colony's common stores, and that "All such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock", so no suprise, they switched to greedy capitalism and had plenty to eat.

In fall 1623 after a poor harvest in 1622 causes Plymouth Colony Pilgrims to give up the communist approach to agriculture and discover the power of capitalism and free enterprise, giving each household their own parcel of land and telling them that they can keep or trade all they produced, causing women and children to eagerly join the men in the fields, finally ending their food shortage permanently; William Bradford utters the soundbytes: "Instead of famine now God gave them plenty"; "The face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God"; "Any general want of famine hath not been amongst them since to this day"; Edward Winslow brings the first cows from England to go with their pigs, chickens, and goats, and says the colony is now a place where "religion and profit jump together" - blessed be the name of the what?

On Apr. 22, 1622 a patent for the Province of New Hampshire (N.H.) (named in 1629 by Capt. John Mason for his home county in England) is granted to former Newfoundland gov. (1615-21) Capt. John Mason (1586-1635) by the Council of New England, incl. all territory between the Merrimack and Kennebeck Rivers; Roxbury magistrate William Pynchon sends scouts John Cable and John Woodcock to scout the Connecticut River Valley, and they discover the richest farmland in New England, after which it becomes known as Pioneer Valley; next year it is settled at Pannaway Plantation at the mouth of the Piscataqua River (Little Harbor) (near present-day Rye and Dover) by fisherman David Thompson (Thomas) et al., who are sent by Capt. John Smith to establish a fishing colony.

In 1623 Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins (1602-85) (daughter of one of the Mayflower Pilgrims) become the 2nd couple to marry in Plymouth Colony; meanwhile Edward Winslow's brother John Winslow tends to sick Massasoit, who recovers, uttering the soundbyte: "Now I see the English are my friends and love me, and while I live I will never forget this kindness they have showed me"; Winslow goes on to die in 1674 as one of the wealthiest merchants in Boston. Also in 1623 New Hampshire (named in 1629 by Capt. John Mason for his home county in England) is settled at Pannaway Plantation at the mouth of the Piscataqua River (Little Harbor) (near present-day Rye and Dover) by fisherman David Thompson (Thomas) et al., who are sent by Capt. John Smith to establish a fishing colony. A group of Dorchester merchants with a patent from the Council for New England set up a permanent fishing village at Cape Ann at present-day Glouchester; they leave after three years when it proves unprofitable.

In Mar. 1624 a ship arrives in Plymouth Colony bringing the New World's first cattle. On June 16, 1624 the London (Virginia) Co., the company colonizing North Am. is dissolved due to the unpardonable imprudence of the colonists in letting themselves get their asses kicked by Indians, plus the fact that a few tobacco tycoons monopolize the indentured servants; Virginia becomes a royal (crown) colony, and in Aug. Sir Francis Wyatt becomes royal gov. again with a term of five years; the headright system continues; England establishes a royal tobacco monopoly, fostering lung cancer on its own pop.?; Virginia's white pop. is only 1,132 despite 14K immigrating there since 1607. In June 1624 English lawyer Thomas Morton (1576-1646), born and raised in England's "Wild West" arrives in New England on the Unity with 30 men, and founds the colony of Merry Mount (Ma-Re Mount), backed by Sir Fernando Gorges, scorning the nearby Puritans, and bringing Renaissance England to the New World, incl. drinking and dancing around a Maypole, while trading in furs and "inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking together... and worse practices" (William Bradford); in Sept. 1630 Morton, who with his men watched John Winthrop's ships land becomes the first criminal defendant in Mass. Bay for pub. a book lampooning the Puritans and painting a dream of a non-racist non-militarist land, and is expelled. In July 1624 800 Indian warriors battle 60 well-armed and well-pissed Jamestown colonists for two days and lose - the fate of all Indians in America is sealed? On Aug. 5, 1624 Mayflower Pilgrim Thomas Prence marries Patience Brewster, daughter of William Brewster. Also in 1624 Edward Winslow becomes a member of the governor's council of Plymouth (until 1647).

In 1624 the town of Duxbury, Mass. (originally Duxborough) (modern-day pop. 15.5K) on the South Shore near Plymouth is founded by Capt. Myles Standish, William and Love Brewster, John Alden and Priscilla et al., named after his family's Duxbury Manor in Lancashire; it starts out as a farming community then in the 19th cent. becomes a shipbuilding center, and by the 1870s a tourist mecca; in 1638 Myles Standish Burial Ground is founded there.

In 1625 the cockroach comes to America from Africa - and will be in both continents long after humans are extinct?

On Mar. 27, 1625 James I's son Charles I (1600-49) becomes king of England. At that time the combined pop. of English colonists in Va. and Mass. together numbers only 2K.

On May 4, 1626 after being appointed the first dir.-gen. of New Netherlands, Peter Minuit (1580-1638) arrives at the mouth of the Hudson River in the Sea Mew, then on May 24 buys Manhattan Island from the natives for 60 Dutch guilders ($24) in trade goods (beads and geegaws), followed on Aug. 10 by Staten Island for another 60 guilders worth of trinkets; meanwhile the Dutch West India Co. rips off the Spanish treasure ships for 120 million guilders?

In 1626 the Merchant Adventurers of London disband after visiting the fledgling Pilgrim colony at Provincetown, and seven Pilgrim Fathers (Bradford, Brewster, Winslow, Standish, Alden, Howland, Allerton and Prence) assume the colony's debt in return for a fur trade monopoly.

On Jan. 3, 1627 Francis Cooke (1583-1663) and five other men are appointed to lay out 20-acre land shares for every Mayflower family that came as a planter under the employ of the joint stock co.; the Cattle Division becomes the first census of Plymouth Colony.

In June 1628 after the men of Merry Mount (Merrymount) near modern-day Quincy, Mass. begin trading in furs and selling firewater and firearms to the redskins, this is too much for the Pilgrims, and they send "Captain Shrimpe" (Miles Standish) and his men, who chop down the Maypole and ship Thomas Morton back to England for punishment.

In 1629 under the urging of Amsterdam diamond and pearl merchant Kiliaen (Killian) Van Rensselaer (1585-1643), Dutch colonizers called patroons are authorized to establish large estates in New Netherland which they can rule with full feudal jurisdiction limited only by an oath of fealty to the Dutch West India Co.; they are required to purchase Indian rights to their land and settle at least 50 colonists on it within four (five?) years. By 1630 there are five patroonships in New Netherlands: two on the Hudson River, two on the Delaware River, and one on the Connecticut River; only Rennselaerwyck, founded by van Rensselaer on the W bank of the Hudson around Ft. Orange (Albany) succeeds.

In 1629 the first of four mass migrations from distinct regions of Britain begins as 20K Puritans from the East Anglian counties E of London settle Massachusetts ("near the great hill") over the next dozen years (ends 1641) after Charles I issues a charter to the Mass. Bay Co.; well-to-do 40-y.-o. East Anglian lawyer John Winthrop (1588-1649) saying that "the eyes of all people are on us", decides to make the colony a "wilderness Zion", a "city upon a hill", where persecuted Puritans can find refuge and build the New Jerusalem (a little commercial activity, short of moneychanging in the Temple will be overlooked as well?), and soon discovers a loophole in the charter, a failure to require that the home office be kept in England; on Aug. 29 he gets 12 shareholders to sign the Cambridge Agreement, pledging to take the charter and hence the home office with them to Am., and the co.'s governing body agrees to it; be overlooked as well?), and soon discovers a loophole in the charter, a failure to require that the home office be kept in England; on Aug. 26 he gets twelve leaders to sign the Cambridge Agreement pledging to take the charter and hence the home office with them to Am., and the co.'s governing body agrees to it; Winthrop is chosen as first gov. of the planned Massachusetts Bay Colony, and ends up serving 12x.

On Mar. 22, 1630 (Apr. 7?) 700-odd (400-odd?) Massachusetts Bay Colonists seeking to escape the Thirty Years' War and its economic slump sail in seven ships from Southampton, England for North Am.; Arabella carries John Winthrop (1588-1649) and the charter; en route John Winthrop delivers the sermon Model of Christian Charity, exhorting good Puritans to be like a "City Upon a Hill" and work to construct a Bible-thumping theocratic society in America that will "shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants", else face God's wrath, shaping American politics seemingly forever (until ?); after landing at Salem, Mass. on June 25, on Sept. 17 (Sat. Old Style) (Tues. New Style) they found the town of Boston (formerly Shawmut) (modern-day pop. 4.2M/4.6M) on the 800-acre Shawmut Peninsula surrounded by tidal marshes, deeply indented by coves, creeks and inlets, and dominated by three hills, with a narrow 1-mi.-long frequently-submerged neck joining it with the mainland; John Endicott (Endecott) (1588-1665) becomes gov. #1 of the Mass. Bay Colony, with capital at Charlestown, Mass. (originally Mishawum) on the Mystic River; the first law against gambling in Britsh North Am. is enacted; over the next few cents. the area is gradually filled in, increasing it to 1.8K acres; Medford, Mass. (originally Mistik) is founded as part of Charlestown; John Winthrop (gov. #1 of Mass. Bay Colony) begins keeping a Journal; on Nov. 9 the Boston-Charleston Ferry opens, starting at Noddle's Island, where English Anglican settler Samuel Maverick (1602-70) buys black slaves in 1638, becoming one of the earliest slave owners in Mass.; by the end of the year 17 more ships with another 1K colonists arrive, and by 1642 16K more follow; over 80K colonists leave England for greener pastures (New World, Ireland, Netherlands, Rhineland) in the Great Puritan Migration in this decade (1620-40), mostly Puritans fleeing Charles I for the Mass. Bay Colony, many of them as indentured servants; by 1640 20K settle in Mass. Bay Colony, and 55K total go to the New World, half settling in New England; the total pop. of the Am. colonies this year is only 4.6K; 35 mi. x 1 mi. Newtown (Newe Towne) (New City) is founded in Mass. on the N side of the Charles River opposite Boston 10 years after the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock; in 1638 it changes its name to Cambridge, Mass., becoming a univ. town.; it is later subdivided to form the additional towns of Newton (1691), Lexington (1713), Brighton (1837), and Arlington (1846).

In 1631 English Roman Catholic George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (1579-1632) petitions for a charter for Maryland (Md.) from Charles I, while London merchants and William Claiborne from Jamestown Colony try to stop it; meanwhile Claiborne has own little project, Kent Island in Md., which just happens to fall within the land later granted to Calvert - bring on the baksheesh?

On June 20, 1632 Charles I issues a royal proclamation ordering the country gentlemen to leave London, and grants loyal Catholic George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore a Royal Charter to Maryland (named in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria), N of the Potomac River (Algonquin "where goods are brought in"), with unprecedented powers, although all exports are required to be sent to or through England; too bad, he dies on Apr. 15, and his son Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore (1605-75) takes over. In 1655 after many years of plotting to take back Kent Island from Catholic Maryland, Jamestown Puritan leader William Claiborne defeats a force led by Md. gov. Stone in Providence (Annapolis), kills him, then takes control of Md., and travels to England to get official control, but they don't go for it and Sir George Calvert regains control; after the Puritan govt. in England is ousted in 1660, he finally gives up and contents himself with his little ole 5K-acre Romancoke estate on the York River in Va.

On Sept. 3, 1633 Rev. Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), a Cambridge-educated Puritan pastor from Essex, England arrives in the Mass. Bay Colony in the ship Griffin from Holland, where he had been chased in 1630 by Archbishop Laud under threat of arrest, and on Oct. 11 becomes pastor of the church at Newtown (Cambridge), soon getting in a mutually-respectful spat with Gov. Winthrop over restriction of voting rights, with Winthrop uttering the soundbyte "The best part is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser", to which Hooker upstages him with the immortal soundbyte: "In matters which concern the common good, a general council, chosen by all, to transact businesses which concern all, I conceive most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of the whole." On Sept. 26 after Puritan Separatist Edward Winslow (1595-1655) (hated by James I) becomes gov. #3 of Plymouth Colony and inspects the site, Windsor, Conn. 50 mi. upriver from Long Island Sound is founded as a trading post by Englishmen from Plymouth led by William Holmes; meanwhile Ft. Good Hope (Goede Hoop) (near present-day Hartford, Conn.) is built by the Dutch 10 mi. down the Connecticut River in New Netherland, going on to rais their first tobacco crop. In 1633 Middle Plantation in Va. is settled, changing its name to Williamsburg in 1699.

In 1634 French explorer Jean Nicolet (1598-1642) crosses Lake Michigan and lands at Green Bay to explore the region; expecting Chinese, he dresses in bright-colored flowery Chinese robes.

By 1636 the following offenses are capital crimes in the Mass. Bay Colony, the Puritan paradise: adultery, assault, blasphemy, idolatry, man-stealing, murder, perjury in a capital trial, rape (incl. statutory), rebellion, sodomy, witchcraft; other colonies later add arson, counterfeiting, horse theft, piracy, robbery, and slave rebellion. In June 1636 after elitist Gov. Winthrop fails to mellow out and broaden the voter base, and English-born Puritan minister Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) tells him, "I must confess, I ever looked at it as a way which leads to tyranny and so to confusion, and must plainly profess, if it was in my liberty, I should choose neither to live, nor leave my posterity, under such a government", he leads his 100-person Newtown (Cambridge) congregation along with congregations from Watertown and Dorchester (800 total) on a trek W along the Great Road, moving into the Connecticut River towns of Wethersfield, Conn., Windsor, Conn., and Hartford, Conn. by next May; a 4th group from Roxbury founds Springfield, Conn.. On July 4 after being granted Rhode Island by Narragansett chief Canonicus (1565-1647), London-born Puritan Roger Williams (1603-83) and his Narragansett Indian followers found the town of Providence, R.I. at the head of Narragansett Bay as a refuge for religious dissidents, and proclaim complete religious freedom - as long as you aren't an atheist? On Oct. 28 Cambridge (later Harvard) College is established by vote of the Great and General Court of the Mass. Bay Colony on the banks of the Charles River, with Nathaniel Eaton as pres.; a tall stockade keeps out wolves and Indians.

In Apr. 1637 settlers from Saugus, Mass. with permission of the Plymouth Colony found the nearby town of Sandwich, Mass. on the NW part of the hook, named after the seaport of Sandwich in Kent, England; its motto is "Post tot Naufracia Portus" (After so many shipwrecks, a haven); in 1639 it is incorporated, becoming the oldest town on Cape Cod; in 1884 the W part separates and becomes the town of Bourne. In May the English settlers of Connecticut meet to organize a self-governing colony and deal with the pesky local tribe (which has shrunk from 8K in 1621 to 1.5K from whitey's diseases) of the Pequots after they attack Wethersfield; on May 26 with help from Mass. troops commanded by Israel Stoughton they burn the chief Pequot town-fort on the Mystic River near Stonington, Conn., and massacre 400, selling the rest into slavery and ending the tribe's existence (the first major New World English-Indian clash?); they then declare a Day of Thanksgiving - the first English act of genocide? On July 23 Charles I hands over the Mass. Colony to wealthy English businessman Sir Fernando Gorges (1565-1647), one of the founders of the (Plymouth) Council of (for) New England.

On Mar. 7, 1638 after Rhode Island, the first Baptist colony is settled at Portsmouth, a compact for the govt. of the colony is signed; on Mar. 22 Anne Hutchinson is expelled from the Mass. Bay Colony, with gov. John Winthrop calling her an "American Jezebel", and her family and a few followers move to Aquidneck (later Rhode) Island near Portsmouth, but the arduous foot journey causes her to miscarry, letting her Mass. critics gloat about the "monstrous birth" as a punishment from God; meanwhile Sergeant Bauleton becomes mgr. of a brewhouse in Providence, R.I. On Mar. 29 Delaware is settled by Swedes and Finns led by Johan Printz, who found New Sweden (until 1655) on the Delaware River, where they build the first log cabins in America. Ft. Christina (named after Queen Christina Wasa), site of modern-day Wilmington, Del. is founded at the confluence of the Christina, Brandywine, and Delaware Rivers, becoming the first Swedish settlement in North Am. In Mar. Gov. John Winthrop signs a charter for the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Co. of Massachusetts. American democracy is born from the Bible and signed off on by God with an earthquake? On May 31 after being governed by a board of commissioners from Mass. for one year, the Conn. colonists hold a gen. court in Hartford and elect their own reps. after Rev. Thomas Hooker gives a big sermon, quoting Deut. 1:13, "Take you wise men and understanding... and I will make them rulers over you", concluding that "the foundation of authority is laid... in the free consent of the people", and that "the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance", and that they have the right "to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them" - thus is American-style democracy born of a Bible-thumping Puritan with a ho's name? On Sept. 14 clergyman John Harvard (b. 1607) of Charlestown, Mass. dies, leaving his 400-book library to the new local college at Cambridge, which is later renamed in his honor; the college burns to the ground in 1674, along with all but one of his books; in 1884 a Statue of John Harvard, 1636 Founder of Harvard College is cast by Daniel Chester French, later becoming known as the "Statue of the Three Lies" because it uses a 19th cent. model, JH didn't actually found Harvard, and it was founded in 1636 not 1638. A group of English Puritans from Mass. settle New Haven, Conn. at New Haven Bay on Long Island Sound, intending to establish themselves in commerce, but end up being reduced to hardscrabble farming, becoming the most rigorously Puritan self-governing (charterless) settlement of all. The Laud Commission orders Mass. to return its charter and answer charges that its officials have violated its provisions; plans by New England Gov.-Gen. Ferdinando Gorges to use force to subdue the Puritans are stopped by the English Civil War. The pop. of Strawberry Banke, N.H. forms a covenant pledging allegiance to Charles I. The public sale of slaves begins in Jamestown, Va..

On Jan. 15, 1639 the Fundamental Orders of Conn., the first written constitution in history and precursor of the U.S. Constitution (based on a sermon by Thomas Hooker) are adopted by reps. of three Connecticut towns; it provides for voting by English adult males whether church members or not, except the gov., who has to be a member "of some approved congregation"; Puritan theocracy is abandoned. In Jan. Charles I allows Va. gov. Sir Francis Wyatt (1588-1644) to call the Gen. Assembly once a year, which sets a precedent for royal colonies in North Am.; by this year Virginia has exported 750 tons of tobacco, and is chafing under Charles I's export restrictions; on Jan. 6 Va. destroys its surplus tobacco; a law is passed decreeing that "all persons except Negroes" are to get arms and ammo to fight Indians. On Sept. 25 the first printing press in North Am. is established in Cambridge, Mass. in connection with Harvard College, producing mainly religious tracts and sermons; meanwhile Mass. becomes the first state to require marriage licenses. On Sept. 25 Wampanoag Sachem Woosamequen (Massasoit) (1581-1661) and his son Mooanam come to the General Court at Plymouth and acknowledge their confederacy with the govt. of England. On Nov. 5 the first post office in the colonies opens in Mass. at the home of Richard Fairbanks. Having contracted Hooker Fever, the General Court of Mass. becomes a body of reps. from the various towns around Plymouth; the 1-page Oath of a Free-Man, printed in Cambridge, Macc. replaces the purchase of stock by membership in the Puritan church as the requirement for becoming a freeman and having voting powers, becoming the first document printed in the Am. British colonies; too bad, none of 50 copies survives. Charles I grants a renewed patent for the province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, naming him proprietor; the name Maine is considered a compliment to Charles I's queen Henrietta Maria, who owns the French province of Mayne; after he dies in 1647 and his son neglects it, Mass. begins governing it (until 1820); early settlers are met by the Penobscot ("Penawapskewi" = rocky part or descending ledges) Indian tribe, who teach them about bean-hole bean cooking, putting a pot of beans, onions, and salt pork covered with molasses in a hole filled with ash and embers for 6 hours for yummy yum yum - followed by pee-yuuu six hours later? Boston, England-born Darby Field (1610-49) becomes the first white man to ascend the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

In 1640 in Jamestown, Va. a black man is sentenced "to serve his said master or his assigned for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere" for some unknown criminal offense. In 1640 the Mass. Bay Colony sends 300K codfish to market. Also in 1640 the Dutch found a settlement on Long Island on the East River which later becomes Long Island City.

In July 1642 thanks to the King James Bible giving them ideas, the Bible-thumping Puritans, led by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) begin the English Civil War against the too-Roman-Catholic Anglican establishment, beheading Charles I on Jan. 30, 1649, then turning England into a grim religious paradise complete with Bible police. Speaking of policing, condoms are made of fish and animal intestines in Birmingham for use in the English Civil War, which causes migration to the Am. colonies to er, dwindle to a trickle for more than 20 years. Luckily Cromwell croaks on Sept. 3, 1658, and his son Richard can't keep it glued, allowing Charles I's exiled son Charles II (1630-85) to be invited back and make a triumphant reentry in 1660, making a point of having Cromwell's corpse dug up and cum, er, partied on.

In 1644 after a poor widow and a wealthy merchant go to the Mass. General Court over ownership of a stray sow, the deputies and the assistants split, and the case is settled out of court, but the assts. push for the creation of a 2-house legislature, one for the deputies (like the English House of Commons) and one for the assistants (like the English House of Lords); Rhode Island receives its first charter from the Puritan parliament in Massachusetts; Conn. Colony unites with the colony at Saybrook, Providence unites with Newport, and Portsmouth unites with Rhode Island. Meanwhile the aging Opechancanough attacks the Va. colony again, with as many English casualties as in 1622, but the larger English pop. (8K) and the ferocious English response makes sure that it never happens again; Opechancanough is captured and shot in the back in a Jamestown jail; Virginia's pop. quadruples over the next 30 years, then doubles again to 74K by 1704. Also in 1644 Edward Winslow is elected gov. of Plymouth for the 3rd and last time (1633, 1636).

In 1647 Peter (Pieter) Stuyvesant (1592-1672) becomes New Netherlands dir.-gen. (until 1664), going on in 1652 to found the town of Beverwyck near Ft. Orange (founded 1624) on Westerlo Isle in the Hudson River near the confluence with the Mohawk River 136 mi. N of New York City, which changes its name in 1664 to Albany, N.Y. In 1658 he founds New Harlem.

In 1650 after deciding to copy the Muslims of N Africa and the French, the Golden Age of Piracy begins for Britain (ends 1722); only the last 30 years are really good? In 1650 the Great German Migration to Penn. begins (ends 1730); between 1700-75 60K Germans migrate.

In 1651 Austerfield, Yorkshire-born English illegal immigrant Puritan Separatist leader William Bradford (1590-1657), gov. of Plymouth Colony 5x in 1621-57 finishes his journal History of Plymouth (Plimouth) Plantation, 1620-1647, written in 1630-51, based on material by George Morton, Edward Winslow et al. pub. in 1622 in London as "Mourt's Relation"; the #1 work of 17th cent. America?; covers the Pilgrims from their settlement in the Dutch Repub. in 1608 through the 1620 Mayflower voyage to 1647, followed by a list of Mayflower passengers and what happened to them, written in 1651; after Bradford never attempts to get it pub., the ms. is stored in the tower of Old South Church in Boston, disappears during the Am. Rev. War, and is found in 1855 in the Fulham Library in England, being pub. for the first time in 1856, then returned to the U.S. in 1898.

In 1653 the first Indian reservation (rez) is created in Va., 46 years after Jamestown (1607).

In 1660 the pop. of the Am. colonies is 75K. In the 1660s black African slaves become cheaper to import to North Am. than white indentured servants, who are also considered more rebellious, and black slavery becomes hereditary in Va. and elsewhere, although blacks are viewed as lazy "salvages" who are apt to revert to cannibalism and whose women are all hos if not watched and "kept down"? - did you show them your sales receipt?

In Sept. 1662 34-y.-o. English settler John Bowne (1628-95) is arrested by Peter Stuyvesant's sheriff Resolve Waldron at his 1-room farmhouse (oldest house in New York City, built in 1661) in Vlissingen (modern-day Flushing, Queens) in New Amsterdam on the charge of "abetting an abomination" for permitting Quakers to worship with his wife in his home; he is deported to Amsterdam for 19 mo. until he gets the Dutch West India Co. to enforce the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance, order Gov. Peter Stuyvesant to halt persecution of religious minorities, and allow him to return to his little ole home, which later is hailed as the "cradle of religious tolerance in America" (made into a museum in 1947); seven U.S. presidents later descend from him (John and J.Q. Adams, Lincoln, Nixon, Ford, G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush), and four New York City mayors (all before 1840) (John Lawrence, Marinus Willett, Walter Bowne, and Cornelius Lawrence).

On July 15, 1663 Charles II ignores Spanish claims and grants a royal charter to the Province of Carolina to eight lucky Lords Proprietors (a-leaping?), the Duke of Albemarle (1608-7), the Earl of Clarendon (1609-74), Lord John Berkeley (1607-78) and Sir William Berkeley (1606-77), the Earl of Craven (1608-97), Sir George Carteret (1610-80), Sir John Colleton (1608-66), and the Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-83), consisting of a huge tract of land in North Am. from the 31st to the 36th parallel; all but the Carteret heirs sell their shares to the crown in 1729, and the charter stays in effect until 1842. In 1665 New Jersey is organized as an English colony under Gov. Philip Carteret, with capital (until 1686) at Elizabeth (founded 1664), which is settled by colonists from Jamaica, Long Island and named after Carteret's wife. In 1676 by mutual agreement New Jersey is divided by a diagonal line into East and West New Jersey, with Sir George Carteret taking the E and the Quakers taking the W.

In 1664 Connecticut and New Haven unite. Also in 1664 Maryland passes the first Anti-Miscegenation Law, and requires lifelong servitude from blacks; other colonies follow suit.

Early in 1664 the Second Anglo-Dutch War (ends 1667) is started by Charles II's govt. head Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609-74); on May 25 Duke James II of York (eventual successor Charles II) sends an expedition of 300 troops from Portsmouth to capture New Netherlands from Connecticut to Delaware, incl. Ft. Orange, renaming it Albany; on Sept. 8 they capture New Amsterdam from the Dutch, who surrender it peacefully, renaming it New York (modern pop. 7M+) after the Duke of York (both the city and the province), with Richard Nicolls (1624-72), groom of the bedchamber to the duke as British gov. #1 (until 1672); the region of Pennsylvania is captured along with it; Charles II also grants the province of Maine (named after the French province, or because the mainland is distinct from its many coastal islands?) to the the Duke of York, who grants the province of New Jersey (named after Carteret's native island of Jersey, or Nova Caesaria) to Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley (brother of the gov. of Va.); after the surrender Dutch gov. of New Holland Peter Stuyvesant goes to Holland for debriefing, then returns, spending the rest of his life cultivating his large farm called the Bouwerij (Bowery) in Manhattan (Algonquian word for island?) (until 1672).

On Oct. 18, 1667 Brueckelen (Dutch "broken land") (Brooklyn) in New Amsterdam is chartered by Gov. Richard Nicolls, consisting of "all the lots and plantations lying and being at the Gowanus, Bedford, Walle Bocht and Ferry" - where is the undercover DEA agent?

In 1673 Thomas Prence dies, and Pilgrim Hitler Josiah Winslow (1628-80), son of Mayflower passengers Edward and Susanna Winslow (known for legally stealing Indian land by tricking them into mortgaging it to pay off consumer debt such as horses, then relentlessly removing them from ancestral lands using the courts) becomes gov. of Plymouth Colony (until 1680). On June 20, 1675 the 14-mo. King Philip's War (Metacomet's Rebellion) (ends Apr. 12, 1678) begins in New England, ending 55 years of peace after three Wampanoags are hung by Winslow for the Jan. murder of Indian informer John Sassamon (Wassausmon) (b. 1620) at the order of Wampanog chief King Philip of Pokanoket (Metacomet) (1639-76) (2nd son of Massasoit) (the great dope who greeted Josiah's parents in 1621, and had been the staunch ally of the Puritans for 40 years, only to set his own people up for extermination?) which, combined with decades of racial, social and economic discrimination threatening their existence causes Philip to repudiate all treaties with white man's forked tongue and begin raiding Puritan settlements, burning and massacring settlers, which in turn, combined with Winslow's cold-blooded no-compromise racism, gets Puritans and Indians into an apocalyptic death struggle, becoming the deadliest war per-capita ever fought on U.S. soil (2x the U.S. Civil War, 7x the Am. Rev. War); eventually the Indians burn a third of the 100 towns in New England, causing a fleeting proposal to build a wall around the core and let the Indians have the rest; the Boston Indian Imprisonment Act orders the arrest of all Indians entering the city (never repealed); Capt. Benjamin Church (1639-1718), grandson of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren, and husband of the daughter of William Bradford's stepson Constant Southworth, who last year become the first Englishman to attempt to live among the Indians and treat them like human beings, settling in the SE tip of Narragansett Bay (at Sakonnet, E of Aquidneck Island in modern-day Little Compton, R.I.) is commandeered by the wrong (Winslow) side, and organizes the first company of Rangers in Mass., emerging as the first Am. Indian fighter and the prototype for Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Rambo et al., providing the whites with info. on Indian movements from Indian traitors, although he doesn't know the plan is genocide until it's too late to stop it? In Dec. 1675 the English colonists create a 1K-man army (largest white army yet in New England) under the title of United Colonies of Mass., Conn., and Plymouth, led by Gen. Josiah Winslow, with a plan to invade the colony of Rhode Island for not supporting them, then wipe out the large Narragansetts tribe before it joins King Philip and wipes them all out; on Dec. 2 a day of prayer is observed throughout New England, calling on the "God of Armies" to help them kick Indian butt; on Dec. 19 the Great Swamp Fight (Massacre) of the Narragansetts sees the English colonists invade the Narragansett swamp stronghold W of Rhode Island (the first known Indian fort, poorly built), and get their white butts kicked (20% casualty rate, greater than D-Day) until the Indians run out of gunpowder and abandon the fort, leaving their women, children and old behind, and the wonderful whites ditch the idea of living in an Injun-built fort filled with food and instead burn it with the Indians inside, listening to their screams; the whites lose 200 of 1K, and the Indians lose 600 of 3K?

On Feb. 10, 1676 English-born Am. settler Mary Rowlandson (1637-1710) and her three children are abducted from their home in Lancaster, Mass. by Indians; on May 2 they are ransomed for £20; she goes on to pub. "The Sovereignty and Goodness of God" in 1682. On Mar. 12 the Clarke Garrison House Massacre S of Plymouth Colony sees 11 whites, mostly women and children massacred, causing the Plymouth authorities to execute four Indians accused of taking part. In May 29-y.-o. rich spoiled Cambridge U. grad. and recent (1674) immigrant Nathaniel Bacon (1647-76) defies the authority of Va. Gov. Sir William Berkeley (1606-77) by organizing an armed band of "common men" (white and black, many of them debtors eyeing Indian land) vigilantes in a war against the Indian "wolves, tigers, and bears" who prey upon "our harmless and innocent lambs", occupying Bacon's Castle, a colonial house with distinctive decorative end gables; after issuing the Declaration of the People of Virginia on July 30 to gain support, Bacon leads Bacon's Rebellion in colonial Virginia against Berekely's govt., having him arrested and burning Jamestown in Sept.; unfortunately, Bacon dies of swamp fever in Oct., allowing Berkeley to regain control and subdue the rebels, hanging 23 of them and confiscating several estates; when Berkeley captures Bacon's closest lieutenant, exclaiming, "I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia; Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour", this and other excesses cause his recall to England, and a royal commission makes pacification treaties with the wronged Indians, granting them tiny reservations which survive to modern times; Virginia is so weakened that a British military force is dispatched to protect it; the rebellion causes the supply of indentured servants to Chesapeake Bay to dry up, causing a systematic transition to African slaves, helped by distrust of white indentured servants? On June 20, 1676 the governing council of Charlestown, Mass. proclaims June 29 as a Day of Thanksgiving, becoming the first such official proclamation. On July 18, 1676 the Plymouth congregation renews its covenant first made in Leiden over 50 years earlier; "We are, though descended of a noble vine, yet become the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto God; we have been a proud generation, though we are the sons and daughters of Zion". On Aug. 12, 1676 after his squaw and little son are captured and sold as West Indies slaves, King Philip (b. 1639) and his few remaining followers (Annawon et al.) are surprised by Capt. Benjamin Church on Mount Hope in Rhode Island, and King Philip is shot and killed as he flees by a Pocasset named Praying Indian John Alderman, then beheaded and quartered like a traditional English traitor; Annawon succeeds King Philip, holding out for several mo., then making a peace treaty with the English, only to be martyred, ending King Philip's War in Plymouth Colony (begun 1675), along with any independence for the Indians of Winslow's Whitened-Up New England, whose losses total 5K of 20K, incl. 2K in battle, and 3K of sickness or starvation; 2K flee, and 5K-9K are shipped as slaves to certain death in Caribbean sugar plantations, starting with the Seaflower, containing 178 Indians, described as guilty of "many notorious and execrable murders, killings and outrages" by Josiah Winslow; Capt. Sprague ends up dumping them in Africa when nobody wants them?; King Philip's head is brought into Plymouth on Aug. 17 (Thur.) "in great triumph" right after public worship for a day of Thanksgiving, "so that in the day of our praises our eyes saw the salvation of God"; the head is placed on a palisade of the town fort, where it remains for over 20 years, becoming the town's first attraction long before Plymouth Rock - this is our country?

In Sept. 1679 French soldier Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-87) and Belgian Franciscan friar Louis Hennepin (1640-1701) discover Niagara Falls, then sail through the Detroit River to Green Bay, the St. Joseph River, Lake Michigan, and the Illinois River (the Mississippi River source) by Dec.; they visit South Bend, Ind. on the S bend of the St. Joseph River, and a French trading post is established that is later taken over by John Jacob Astor's Am. Fur Co. Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Duluth (1636-1710) of France explores N Minn. and the Great Lakes, building a fort on the shores of Lake Superior and claiming the entire region for Louis XIV. Also in 1679 Va. passes the first Slave Code Law, which becomes a model for God Bless America; slaves and their children are bound for life, and written permission from da massah is required to carry arms or leave the master's land.

On Mar. 4, 1681 the English colony of Pennsylvania (Penn.) ("Penn's Woods") (W from the Delaware River for 5 deg. of longitude, and from the 40th to the 43rd deg. of latitude) receives its charter from Charles II to pay off Cromwell supporter Adm. Sir William Penn Sr. (1621-70), who had an outstanding £16K debt owed by the crown at his death in 1670, and his son, English Quaker convert William Penn Jr. (1644-1718) as the proprietor; the colony is named after the father not the son; the N boundary is later changed to 42 deg. because it overlaps New York; in 1767 the S boundary is settled as 19 mi. S of the 40th parallel by the surveying of the Mason-Dixon line; by the end of the year there are about 1K new settlers lured by advertisements to come to a "holy experiment" based on Quaker ideals; Penn sends his Anglican cousin Capt. William Markham (1635-1704) ahead while he recruits fresh fish back in England, North Ireland, and Germany, incl. Quakers and Mennonites from the Rhine country.

The first planned American housing development? On Feb. 2, 1683 the Penn. Gen. Assembly rejects the First Frame of Government, and adopts the Second Frame of Government as their constitution, passing "at least seventy laws without one dissent" (William Penn); William Penn sets up a provincial postal system; on Oct. 6 13 families from Krefeld, Germany on the Rhine River (founded 1105) (one of the few towns spared the horrors of the Thirty Years' War of 1618-48, causing it to become overpopulated, unlike its sister town Uerdingen, which was almost wiped out) found Germantown (modern-day pop. 76K); meanwhile William Penn learns the Delaware language (how?), and in Oct. enters into a Treaty of Perpetual Friendship with the Lenni-Lenape tribe of the Delaware River Valley under Tamanend (Tammany) (Tammamend) (Tamanent) (Tamine) (1628-98) ("affable") Tammany (Tamanend) (Tamanent) (Tamine) (1628-98) ("affable") while standing under Treaty Oak tree in Shakamaxon (Kensington, later part of Philadelphia), which lasts 50 years after Tammany utters the soundbyte that they would "live in peace as long as the waters run in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon endure" (a fairy tale?); Penn then allegedly sights the city of Dover, Del., and the planned city of Philadelphia, Penn. (Philly) (Gr. "brotherly love") (modern-day pop. 1.56M/6M), founded last Oct. 27 1 mi. from Shackamaxon at the junction of the Delaware and Schuylkill ("hidden channel") (pr. SKOOL-kuhl) Rivers in SE Penn., becoming the first city in North Am. with public parks?; it is incorporated on Oct. 25, 1701; land is purchased from the Lenape by William Penn that later becomes Abington Township, Penn. N of Philly - so what's your tire size?

In 1686 Arkansas is settled by Italian-born French soldier Henri de Tonti (1649-1704), who founds Arkansas Post.

By 1688 the pop. of the British colonies in Am. is 250K (12 of the 13 colonies have now been founded); French colonists in Am.: 12K; British pop. of the West Indies: 90K; the trade of the American and West Indies British colonies now accounts for 12% of England's total external trade. On June 10, 1688 James II and his 2nd wife Mary of Modena have a son, pissing everybody off since they know he's going to be brought up Roman Catholic, causing Parliament to invite PC (Protestant Continually) William III of Orange (1650-1702) (stadholder of the Netherlands since 1672) (son of Duke William II and Princess Mary Stewart, daughter of Charles I) and his equally PC wife Mary Stuart (1662-94) (James II's daughter by first wife Anne Hyde, and sister of Princess Anne) (4 in. taller than him and 12 years younger, who has gone from a young, slim, sweet-16 bitchin' babe on their honeymoon to a big-boned manly woman with a double chin by now?) to save England from Roman Catholic tyranny, which they accept on Sept. 30; on Nov. 5 William lands in the health resort of Brixham in Torbay (Tor Bay) in South Devon, 23 mi. S of Exeter and 220 mi. SW of London, then travel to London, reaching it in Dec., causing James II to send the queen and infant prince James to France on Dec. 10 then flee on Dec. 11 before William arrives, taking a rowboat down the Thames River and throwing the Great Seal of England into the river to ensure that his enemies can't use it to forge an abdication document; meanwhile on Dec. 11 anti-Catholic mobs romp in London, burning chapels and attacking the homes of ambassadors from Catholic states; on Dec. 12 a provisional govt. is set up in London, and James is caught and brought back to London, but he escapes and makes it to France on Dec. 22; on Dec. 19 William triumphantly enters London, ending the Glorious (Bloodless) Revolution; Princess Anne of Denmark (future Queen Anne), a devout Anglican deserts her father James' cause, fleeing to Nottingham, causing James to blame her and her Protestant sister Mary for losing his throne, and leaving her with guilt feelings for life; meanwhile the Nonjuring Schism sees the Anglican churches split over accepting William as regent or king, with the latitudinarian clergy going for king, and the nonjuring clergy going with regent, ending up as nominal Jacobites after the latitudinarian Anglicans gain control of the Church of England, and the Presbyterians gain control of the Church (Kirk) of Scotland.

Please allow me to introduce myself, bet you can't guess my name? The original New England Let's Play Millionaire? On Feb. 28, 1692 the Salem Witch Trials begin after 9-y.-o. Elizabeth "Betty" Parris (1682-1760), daughter of Salem minister Samuel Parris (1653-1720) starts having "convulsions", then turns into an accusation machine, spreading the idea to other girls, starting with her cousin Abigail Williams (1680-97), accusing Parris' South American slave Tituba of witchcraft, which she confesses to after a beating, going on to join her husband John Indian in accusing others, the Salem Witch Trials begin, presided over by Mass. Bay Colony gov. (1692-1701) William Stoughton (1631-1701), son of Dorchester, Mass. founder Israel Stoughton (1603-44), and a remote ancestor of U.S. pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt on his father's side; on May 14 Sir William Phips arrives in Boston with a charter ending the 1684 English law banning colonies from self-govt. and telling the legislature to set up a judicial system by Oct., but since the witch biz is too hot, on May 27 he issues a commission for a criminal court of oyer and terminer, with Stoughton as chief justice, even though he has no legal training and ends up running a Star Chamber style show; on Mar. 26 Mercy Lewis accuses Elizabeth "Goody" Proctor (nee Bassett) (1650-1704), wife of John Proctor (1632-92), who is also accused and executed on Aug. 19; on May 23 they accuse Sarah Pease; on June 2 they condemn their first witch to death, Bridget Bishop (nee Playfer) (b. 1632), and she is hung on June 10, becoming the first of 72 accused and tried, and 20 executed; George Burroughs (b. 1650), pastor of a church in Salem since 1680 is accused of bewitching (manufactured fake victim, later giving women's libbers an idea?) Mary Walcott and tried and executed on Aug. 19, becoming the only minister; more witch trials begin in nearby Andover; over 150 are accused, four die in prison, and 20 are hanged (not burned at the stake, because the Puritan prudes don't want people to see the clothes burned off?) this year and next, five of them men; Capt. John Alden Jr. (1626-1702) son of John Alden and Priscilla Alden of Mayflower fame is convicted of witchcraft, but breaks out of prison and hides in his hometown of Duxbury, Mass., later writing an account of the trials; on Sept. 19 Giles Corey (Cory) (Coree) (b. 1611) becomes the only person pressed to death by stones while trying to make him confess; in Oct. after Phips' wife Lady Mary Phips is named as a witch he pulls the plug and prohibits "spectral" evidence and testimony to be used for conviction, then three weeks later prohibits further arrests, releases 49 of the 52 accused still in prison, and dismisses the court of oyeah and terminates with extreme prejudice, then next May pardons all 153 remaining suspects still in priz incl. Eliabeth Proctor; in 1697 Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) becomes the only judge to publicly repent his role, calling for a day of prayer and fasting as well as reparations, and taking Betty Parris in, after which her "convulsions" stop (can't get enough of your love?); meanwhile another witch hunt begins in Stamford, Conn.; Mass. colony reverses about two-third of the convictions in 1711, and the state of Mass. reverses the remainder in 1957 - the separation of church and state principle gains an eternal monument in America?

Why do Britain's colonies ultimately go renegade? In 1696 the Navigation Act of 1696 puts the screws on the colonies by requiring colonial governors to enforce all Navigation Acts, and puts violators in front of admiralty courts with judges appointed by the governors, with no juries. In 1696 William III creates the Board of Trade and Plantations to replace the Lords of Trade and Plantations in an effort to bring harmony among the many central organs through which the crown exercises executive control of its empire; it soon seems to be in control of the colonial business, but suffers from lack of ability to compel obedience to its advice, only to make recommendations to the committee of the privy council; the secy. of state for the southern dept., the secy. concerned with colonial affairs, is ex officio a member of this board as well as a member of the committee of the privy council charged as the chief admin. official to make it all work, but usually doesn't bother; in practice the purpose of the board is to encourage the colonies to produce raw materials and keep out of manufacturing; it eventually gets the crown to disallow 469 colonial laws it doesn't like; after 1725 it is defanged by PM Robert Walpole.

Country	Leader	From	To
England	William III (1650-1702) and Mary II (1662-94)	Feb. 13, 1689	Mar. 8, 1702
France	Louis XIV (1638-1715)	May 14, 1643	Sept. 1, 1715
Austria	HRE Leopold I (1640-1705)	July 18, 1658	May 5, 1705
Russia	Tsar Peter I the Great (1672-1725)	Nov. 2, 1721	Feb. 8, 1725
Papacy	Pope Innocent XII (1615-1700)	July 12, 1691	Sept. 27, 1700

In 1700 the Anglo pop. of the English colonies in America is 250K, with Boston (7K) the largest city, followed by New York City (5K); the ratio of the pop. in England to the pop. of the English colonies is 20 to 1; native Am. Indian pop.: 1M. Well-fed Americans are the tallest people in the world from colonial times until the middle of the 20th cent. In the 18th cent. the Muslim Arab Slave Trade in E Africa sees 500-1K slaves taken at a time from villages in E Africa, held in Zanzibar in the Shimoni Caves for up to three weeks, then shipped to Yemen and America; it continues until the 19th cent.; the port city of Bordeaux, France becomes a major player in the Trianglular Trade of slave ships trading weapons, cloth, and trinkets for African slaves, who are then shipped to the Indies and traded for sugar, coffee, chocolate, and cotton, creating wealthy families who plow their money into wine estates, making Bordeaux wine #1, with names like Mouton, Lafite and Margaux; in 1700-1800 500+ slave ships sail from Bordeaux; meanwhile in the still lily-white Va. Colony racial attitudes harden to the point that all blacks are considered slaves, and manumission requires them to leave so they don't have to deal with a mixed society; meanwhile the white elite fosters racism to keep the downtrodden white lower classes from uniting with the blacks against them and instead prefer racial solidarity, leading to the tragic Pickett's Charge for Ole Virginny in 1863? In 1700-1850 more than 70% of the 12M total slave exports across the Atlantic occur, with a mortality rate of 25% (9.5M surviving). In 1700-1810 ships bring nearly 1M African slaves to work in sugar planations in Jamaica and Barbados; British sugar consumption grows from 4 lbs. per capita in 1700, 18 in 1800, 36 in 1850, to 100+ by 1900; in the early 1700s Lagos, Nigeria becomes a major center of the African slave trade (until 1851), ruled by the Yoruba Oba kings.

Detroit really is the original home of Cadillac? On July 24, 1701 French king Louis XIV gives permission for the settlement of Detroit (Fr. "le Detroit" = the Straits) (modern-day pop. 3.7M/5.3MM), originally Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit (Détroit) to ever-broke Gascony, France-born explorer and scoundrel Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac (1658-1730) on a peninsula joining Lake Huron and Lake Erie to control Illinois trade; the settlement is begun in July; Cadillac arrived from France at Point Royal in 1683, added "de La Mothe Cadillac" to his name after Cadillac in SW France,, and spent four years exploring the New World down to the Carolinas, getting a promotion to cmdr. of Fort de Buade (Michilimackinac) (near modern-day St. Ignace, Mich.) in 1694, exploring the Great Lakes in 1695 until he got into trouble for selling alcohol to the Indians and returned to Montreal in 1696, traveling back to France in 1697 to talk them into building Fort Pontchartrait on the straits; too bad, it burns down in 1703, and he returns to Quebec, getting charged with trafficking in alcohol and furs, taking until 1708 to clear his name, after which in 1710 he is appointed gov. of Louisiana, founding Mine La Motte in modern-day Madison County, Mo., the first lead mine in Missouri, worked by the first African slaves in Mo.; in 1716 he is fired, and returns to France in 1717, gaining an undeserved rep as a hero until the 1950s.

On Mar. 8, 1702 king (since 1688) William III (b. 1650) dies at Kensington Palace after being thrown from his horse, and is succeeded by his lace-loving sister-in-law and cousin (2nd daughter of James II and his first wife Anne Hyde) (a devout Anglican) Anne Stuart (Stewart) (1665-1714) (the 49th British monarch), becoming the last Stuart (Stewart) monarch (until Aug. 1, 1714). On May 4, 1702 Queen Anne's War (Am. side of the War of the Spanish Succession), the 2nd of the French and Indian wars begins as England declares war on France; it ends on Apr. 13, 1713 with the Treaty (Peace) of Utrecht, signed by France on the one hand and England, Holland, Prussia, Savoy and Portugal on the other, followed by more treaties signed on July 13 between Spain and England, and more on Aug. 13 between Spain and Savoy (and more in 1714 and 1715), all concluded by Viscount Bolingbroke against the wishes of nearly the entire English nation ends Louis XIV's wars, Queen Anne's War (Second War of the Grand Alliance) (begun 1701), and the War of the Spanish Succession (begun 1700), with the uniting of France and Spain under one king permanently forbidden, and the whole idea being to check France's ambitions by pumping up Ahnuld, er, Austria and Holland on its N, Prussia on its E, and Savoy on its SE, launching the inevitable process of unification of Germany and Italy in the 19th cent., while freeing England for fast commercial expansion; it recognizes the Protestant succession in England, the title of Philip V as king of Spain and the Spanish colonies, and cedes from Spain the Spanish Netherlands (that part which had belonged to the Hapsburgs), and cedes Minorca and Gibraltar to England, along with Hudson Bay, Nova Scotia (Acadia), Newfoundland, and St. Christopher (Kitts) and Nevis, allowing France to retain Quebec; Port Royal is renamed Annapolis Royal in honor of Queen Anne, and remains capital of Nova Scotia until 1750; Portugal receives expanded boundaries in South Am.; the Iroquois are recognized as British subjects; Britain obtains the asiento (monopoly of slave trade) with Spanish possessions for 30 years; England emerges ascendant on the sea over France and the Netherlands, and Euro politics becomes all about Anglo-French and Austrian-Prussian rivalry, with Russia, Spain, Holland, Sweden and the smaller German states playing both sides.

On Aug. 1, 1714 Queen Anne dies childless, and 54-y.-o. genuine kraut George Louis, elector of Hanover becomes George (Georg) I Ludwig of Hanover (1660-1727) (the 50th British monarch), landing in England on Sept. 18; the Stuart Dynasty (founded 1371) ends, and the Hanover, Saxe-Coburg and Windsor Dynasty begins (ends ?); George I never learns to speak or read English, and comes to England without his wife but with three German mistresses and a retinue of Germans.

On July 10, 1727 George I dies, and his German-born son George (Georg) II (1683-1760) is crowned the 51st British monarch. In 1727 the Quakers begin demanding abolition of slavery.

In 1729 Old South Church (Meeting House) in Boston, Mass. is built, becoming the largest bldg. in Boston, used by 5K colonists as the HQ for organizing the Boston Tea Party of Dec. 16, 1773.

Country	Leader	From	To
England	George II (1683-1760)	1727	Oct. 25, 1760
France	Louis XV the Well-Beloved (1710-74)	Sept. 1, 1715	May 10, 1774
Austria	HRE Charles VI (1685-1740)	1711	Oct. 20, 1740
Russia	Tsar Peter II of Russia (1715-30)	1727	Jan. 30, 1730
Papacy	Pope Benedict XIII (1649-1730)	1724	Feb. 21, 1730

In 1730 the pop. of the Am. colonies is 600K; in this decade Irish immigrants settle in large numbers in Philadelphia, Penn. On Aug. 10 Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757) (first Am.-born Mason) is appointed royal gov. of Mass. and N.H. (until Sept. 7, 1741). On Dec. 3 Benjamin Franklin pub. the first known notice about Freemasonry in North Am. in his Penn. Gazette; meanwhile after blasting the owner of the Packet in a series of essays, he buys it from the owner. Cresap's (the Conojocular) War (ends May 1738) begins after German settlers from Penn. seeking to expand the colony's ill-defined borders are run off by Md. settler Thomas Cresap (1702-87), who becomes known as a "Border Ruffian" by Marylanders, and as the "Maryland Monster" by Pennsylvanians, as he leads an armed force to uphold the claims of Md. to all land up to the 40th parallel (just N of Philadelphia, Penn. and S of Lancaster, Penn.). French soldiers massacre the Fox nation - Eighteenth-Century Fox flopped? By this decade Caribbean pirates abandon their motley flags and standardize on the Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones). The first French and British traders begin operating in the region of the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers in Penn., later becoming the site of Pittsburgh. The first Am. tobacco factories open in Virginia, producing snuff. About this time brothers John Wesley (of Lincoln College) and Charles Wesley (of Christ Church) found the Protestant sect of Methodism in Oxford, England; "They are the people who place all religion in wearing long beards." Benjamin Franklin (b. 1706) marries Deborah Read Rogers (1708-74), whom he had proposed to in 1724, but her mother wouldn't permit it because of his financial instability and pending trip to England, after which she married John Rogers, who fled, leaving her and Ben in legal limbo, resulting in a common law marriage only; they have two children, Francis Folger Franklin (1732-6) and Sarah Franklin "Sally" Bache (1743-1808), and raise Ben's illegitimate son William Franklin (1731-1813), who goes on to become colonial gov. of N.J. Jacobean Georgian 18-room H-shaped Stratford Hall in Va. is built, becoming the ancestral home of the Lees of Va., beginning with acting Va. gov. Thomas Lee, his sons Richard Henry Lee (1732-94) and Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734-97) (DOI signers), Light-Horse Harry Lee (who lives there from 1782-1810), and his son Robert E. Lee, who lives there until 1830. William Byrd builds his Georgian Westover Mansion in Va. Jewish colonists build Shearith Israel in New York City, becoming the first synagogue in North Am.

On Oct. 31, 1731 (214th anniv. of Martin Luther's nailing of the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door in 1517) the 20K Lutherans in Salzburg, Austria are expelled en masse by Roman Catholic archbishop (since 1727) Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian (1679-1744); they eventually migrate to North Am. via London, and in 1734 found Ebenezer, Ga. Benjamin Franklin joins the Freemasons and founds the Library Co. of Philadelphia, a subscription library. The French fortify Crown Point on the W shore of Lake Champlain. Trying to get that view of that booty? French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de La Verendrye (Vérendrye) (1685-1749) begins exploring French territory W of the Missouri River (until 1742), going on to discover the Dakotas, W Minn., part of Montana, Manitoba, and W Canada; the 253-acre Verendrye Nat. Monument in W N.D. is erected in 1917. Alexandria, Va. on the Potomac River, 7 mi. S of Washington, D.C. is founded by Scottish merchants, with George Washington helping to survey the town in 1749, when it receives its present name and is incorporated. English factory workers are prohibited from emigrating to British Am. After 500+ Schwenkfelders flee Silesia to Germany, 208 of them arrive in Penn. by 1737, settling down as farmers near Philly, reaching 3K by modern times - do they want to be your stage driver? Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) delivers his Harvard Lectures, showing Puritans how to loosen up enough to become Americans? Onderdonk Farmhouse in Queens, N.Y. is built, surviving to modern times. The State House in Philadelphia (later the Independence Hall), designed by Andrew Hamilton is begun (finished 1751).

In 1732 the black slave pop. of rice-growing S.C. numbers 32K; the white pop. is 14K. A worldwide influenza starts this year (ends 1733). In Feb. the first Mass is celebrated in St. Joseph's of Philadelphia, the only Roman Catholic church in British colonial America. In June George II grants a royal charter to 21 trustees to establish a colony in America between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers. On Dec. 19 Benjamin Franklin (b. 1709) begins pub. Poor Richard's Almanack (until 1757), under the alias Richard Saunders (Bonhomme Richard); it becomes a bestseller (10K copies a year), making him rich enough to retire in 1748 at age 42; "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" - read your almanack and make money from your niggars, that's the life? The Hat Act bans the export of beaver felt hats from the Am. colonies, forcing Americans to buy British-made clothes at 4x the customary price - never refuse an American selling beaver? French explorer Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes (1668-1719) founds Ft. Vincennes, becoming the first white settlement in Indiana. Ga. colony begins sericulture, producing 10K lbs. of silk per year by 1759; Conn. follows suit in 1734, and becomes far more successful. The govt. of New York City authorizes the old Dutch parade ground at the S end of Broadway adjoining Ft. Amsterdam to be established as a "bowling green... for the recreation and delight of the inhabitants of the city"; known as Bowling Green, it becomes the center of the exclusive residential district and the oldest public park in New York City to survive to modern times; it later (1989) becomes host to the Charging Bull bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica (1960-), and is used as the starting point for ticker tape parades into the "Canyon of Heroes" (Broadway). A London theatrical co. performs for the first time in New York City on Pearl St. German-born Johann Conrad Beissel (1691-1768) founds the vegetarian mainly celibate Seventh Day Baptists (Ephrata Community) in Germantown, Penn. The Moravian Brethren start missionary work, sending their first missionaries to the slaves in the West Indies, and going on to establish missions in North Am., South Am., South Africa, Greenland, and Lapland. The South Carolina Gazette begins pub. Philadelphische Zeitung, the first German-language newspaper in America begins pub.; German-language publishing also begins flourishing in Ephrata, Penn. Ninepins is played for the first time in New York City.

On Feb. 2, 1733 Oxford-educated resident trustee gen. James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785) lands in Savannah, and founds the colony of Georgia (Ga.) (named after George II of England) as a refuge for debtors and criminals after getting the idea from English Anglican clergyman Thomas Bray (1656-1730); he leads 120 colonists to the colony, then with surveyor col. William C. Bull lays out the capital city of Savannah in a geometrical pattern with 22 squares, starting with Johnson Square on Bull St. between Bryan and Congress Sts.; the colony tries to be both a military buffer against Spanish Fla. and a philanthropic experiment for the poor and persecuted. On July 15 the Spanish Treasure Fleet wrecks on the Florida Keys - would you get that animal off my wife, thank you? In July 42 Jewish settlers arrive in Savannah, Ga., after which the trustees of Ga. vote to ban Jewish immigrants, and James Oglethorpe talks them into letting this batch stay, incl. the Salvador Family. In Dec. Palatine immigrant John Peter Zenger (1697-1746) founds the anti-govt. New York Weekly Journal as a rival to William Bradford's pro-govt. New York Gazette, soon editorializing against newly-appointed royal colonial N.Y. gov. (1732-6) Bill Cosby, er, Sir William Cosby (1690-1736), which gets him into hot water - every time I look around you're either in trouble, about to get in trouble, or laying out a long term plan to get into trouble? Santa Cruz in the West Indies comes under Danish control; the Molasses Act protects English planters in the British West Indies from Dutch and French competition in the French sugar islands by introducing a six pence per gallon tax on molasses; unfortunately, rum distilleries in New England need more molasses than the British sugar islands can produce, and they begin flouting the act. St. John's Lodge, the first officially charted Freemason lodge in North Am. is formed in Boston, Mass., with Col. Daniel Coxe (1673-1739) as grandmaster of the colonies, who goes on to spin off provincial grand lodges in N.Y., Philly, and S.C. by 1737. John Bartram (1699-1777) of Philadelphia, "the Father of Am. Botany" begins a correspondence with Europeans that results in the pawpaw, sourwood and other European plants being introduced to North Am. Gov. Oglethorpe orders the Tybee Lighthouse on the Ga. coast constructed.

On Nov. 17, 1734 New York City newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger is arrested on charges of seditious libel, and is imprisoned for 10 mo. before being brought to trial, during which time his his rival William Bradford flops to his side against the stankin' English govt. - after 35 years I am looking forward to retiring, but losing my health insurance bothers me? 8K Salzburg Protestant refugees migrate to the Am. colony of Georgia, followed by German-speaking Moravians, Highland Scots, Portuguese Jews, Welsh et al. - give this mixture a couple of centuries and out pops Scarlett O'Hara? John and Charles Wesley arrive in Savannah, Ga., spending three years (until 1738), and teaching the first Sunday School in North Am. Benjamin Franklin becomes Grand Master of the Philadelphia Freemasons. The Boston Weekly Postboy begins pub. in Mass. On Feb. 1 the first horserace in British Am. is held in Charleston Neck, S.C..

In 1735 there is a diphtheria epidemic in the North Am. colonies, killing thousands (ends 1737). In Sept. German-born New York Weekly Journal publisher John Peter Zenger (1697-1746) is tried in New York City Hall for public criticism which fosters "an ill opinion of the government"; he is defended by aged Scottish-born atty. Andrew Hamilton (1676-1741) of Philadelphia, Penn. (no relation to Alexander Hamilton); after claiming the truth of his article as his defense, and the judge ruling it unacceptable, the jury acquits him anyway in a landmark freedom of the press case in New York which emboldens the press to criticize public officials more freely. Missouri (Mo.) is settled at St. Genevieve. Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg (1704-92) of Herrnhut founds the Moravian Church in the North Am. colony of Georgia on the estate of George Whitefield, then make like gone with the wind and move to Bethlehem, Penn. in 1741; meanwhile in Ga. the sale of alcoholic spirits is prohibited (until 1742), and slavery is abolished until 1749 when rice cultivation arrives; meanwhile Count Nikolaus (Nicolaus) Ludwig von Zinzendorf (und Pottendorf) (1700-60) attempts to stay in Saxony, being ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1734, but the orthodox Lutherans get him banished in 1736 (until 1748), causing him to travel founding new congregations in the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Germany, Estonia, Livonia, and Penn. Scottish-born Presbyterian Church of Ireland revivalist William Tennent (1673-1746) sets up the Log College in Neshaminy, Penn., which turns out more of the same, incl. his son Gilbert, who becomes the leader of the New Light Schism (1741), and eventually helps raise funds for the College of New Jersey (Princeton). Jonathan Edwards discovers religious brainwashing techniques during a religious crusade in Northampton, Mass.: "Our people do not so much need to have their heads stored as to have their hearts touched." Thomas Fairfax, 6th Baron Fairfax of Cameron (1693-1781) of Yorkshire visits his giant estates in Va., comprising 25% of the colony, which he put in the charge of his cousin Sir William Fairfax (1691-1757); in 1747 he moves permanently to the Shenandoah Valley, and has his friend George Washington survey the area; too bad, he remains a loyalist during the Am. Rev. - a fairfax weather friend? The ballad opera Flora becomes the first musical theater performed in British Am. in Charleston, S.C. The Boston Evening Post begins pub.

In 1736 the number of poor receiving public assistance in Boston, Mass. rises to 4K from 500 in 1700. On Mar. 25 (Palm Sun.) the Battle of Ogoula Tchetoka NW of modern-day Tupelo, Miss. sees 130 French forces plus 350 native warriors from Upper La. attack a fortified Chickasaw village under orders of La. gov. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in order to get at the Natchez Indians it is harboring, and get bloodily repulsed, with 21 French POWs taken, and 19 of them burned, most while still alive; on May 26 544 French forces plus 600 Choctaws and 45 Africans try it again in the Battle of Ackia (Long Town) S of modern-day Tupelo, Miss., with the same results; the well-armed (with English weapons) Chickasaw continue to fend off attacks for the next 20 years. In Dec. after Thomas Cresap is arrested by Md. authorities, but Cresap's War continues. The colony of Pennsylvania (Penn.) forms an alliance with the New York-based Six Nations of the Iroquois after the latter conquer the aboriginal tribes of Pensylvania. Tall handsome English Methodist preacher George Whitefield (1714-70) (pr. WHIT-field) begins preaching in England at age 22, wowing huge crowds with a booming voice that doesn't need to be raised even in front of a crowd of 30K; actor David Garrick ("the George Whitefield of the stage") claims he'd pay a thousand pounds to be able to say the word "oh" as good as him; his mere pronouncing of the word "Mesopotamia" causes women to weep?; his sermons are all based on the text "be born again" (John 3:3). Moravian settlers led by bishop Peter Boehler (Böhler) (1712-75) found Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz in Penn.

On Mar. 17, 1737 the first-ever St. Patrick's Day parade is held in Boston, Mass. by mainly Protestant Irish immigrants. In 1737 Penn. deploys military forces against Md. In 1737 the first copper coins in the American colonies are minted in Conn. In 1737 William Penn's sons dispossess the Delawares of the Forks of Delaware by the crooked Walking Purchase. In 1737 William Byrd II (1674-1744) of Westover Plantation, Charles County, Va. founds Richmond, Va. on the James River (modern-day pop. 250K) on land he inherited from his daddy Col. William Byrd (1652-1704), who came from Shadwell, London England in the late 1660s.

In 1738 there is a smallpox epidemic in S.C. On Apr. 28 Pope (1730-40) Clement XII issues the bull In Eminenti condemning Freemasonry, calling the movement "unprincipled". Some things you just can't copy, except your own birth? Born once, die twice, born twice, die once? In the spring George Whitefield visits British Am., starting in Ga., where he converts Anglican priests John Wesley and Charles Wesley, both of whom have religious experiences on May 24; in Dec. Whitefield launches the Great Awakening in Mass. (ends 1844); his disciple Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) stages a mini spiritual awakening in Northampton, Mass. this year and next; Whitefield becomes the first speaker to speak in all 13 Am. colonies. In May George II intervenes, forcing Md. and Penn. to negotiate, ending Cresap's War (begun 1730); the permanent boundary is not fixed until the 1767 Mason-Dixon Line. British troops are sent to the Georgia colony to settle a border dispute with Spain; PM Robert Walpole's opposition begins attacking him over failure to avenge alleged sufferings on British seamen by Spaniards, whose garda costas (patrol ships) are vigorously defending its monopoly on trade with its Am. colonies. New Jersey is separated from New York under its own royal gov. Lewis Morris (1726-98). Ben Franklin writes a letter to his mommy, with the soundbyte "I would rather have it said 'He lived usefully' than 'He died rich'." French explorer La Verendrye discovers the Hidatsa (Gross Ventre), Arikara, and Mandan "ground-house" Siouan Indians at the mouth of the Heart River on the lower Missouri River in N.D. (5 mi. W of Bismarck), the Mandan being a powerful agricultural tribe who live in stockaded villages, tattoo their faces and breasts, and are fond of elaborate ceremonies with ritual tortures; by the mid 20th cent. the Mandans are down to 300, living in Ft. Berthold Rez, N.D. - you don't like poetry? Waltham, Mass. 9 mi. W of Boston (founded 1636) is incorporated, becoming the site of the first under-one-roof cotton mill in the U.S. German Moravian colonist David Zeisberger (1721-1808) migrates to the Am. colony of Georgia, then in 1745 becomes a missionary to the Iroquois, winning them to the English side during the French and Indian War. Wistarburgh Glass Manufactory near Alloway in S N.J. is founded (until 1781), becoming the first successful glass factory and manufacturing site in the U.S.

In Jan. 1739 the Methodists hold a converence in England to formalize Methodism. Three separate violent uprisings by black slaves attempting to escape to Fla. occur in South Carolina; on Sept. 9 the Stono Uprising (20 mi. W of Charleston) kills 30 whites, after which enraged planters take the slaves participating in it and "Cutt off their heads and set them up at every Mile Post", killing 44. In the fall George Whitefield arrives in Philadelphia and preaches to record crowds of 6K, causing Benjamin Franklin to empty his pockets into his collection plate and become friends with him, then build a new bldg. just to contain his audience, which later becomes the U. of Penn.; Whitefield then goes to New England, where he releases "Gales of Heavenly Wind" to the crowds - in Boston, by any chance? Spanish depredations on our estates, persons, and ears, oh my? If it had only been in 1738 it would have been the Take a Muff Year? On Oct. 23 Britain declares war on Spain after PM Robert Walpole's jingoistic opposition's star witness, trader Capt. Robert Jenkins (1700-?) tells Parliament how the *!?*! Spanish had cut off his ear in 1731 while searching his ship for contraband, with the soundbyte "I recommended my soul to God and my cause to my country" as he shows it to them in a box, causing Robert Walpole to half-heartedly declare the War of Jenkins' Ear (ends 1742); in actuality it had been cut off by a pirate, who was punished by the Spanish; on Nov. 22 the English capture the silver-exporting town of Puerto (Porto) Bello in Panama; meanwhile Ga. and S.C. colonists fight Spaniards. Christina, Del. (founded 1638) is renamed Wilmington in honor of the earl of Wilmington.

Country	Leader	From	To
England	George II (1683-1760)	1727	Oct. 25, 1760
France	Louis XV the Well-Beloved (1710-74)	Sept. 1, 1715	May 10, 1774
Austria	HRE Charles VI (1685-1740)	1711	Oct. 20, 1740
Russia	Tsarina Anna Ivanovana (1693-1740)	1730	Oct. 1740
Papacy	Pope Clement XII (1652-1740)	1730	Feb. 6, 1740

In 1740 the pop. of the Am. colonies is 900K. In Jan. Gen. James Oglethorpe of Georgia invades Fla., captures Ft. San Francisco de Pupo and Ft. Picolata on the San Juan River, then sieges St. Augustine in May-July. And Mingo is his name-o? By this year the Mohawks control the land W of the Hudson River around Albany, and the Mohicans the land to the E of it; the Iroquois-related Senecas and Cayugas begin migrating from New England to the S shores of Lake Erie, where they become known as Mingos; the Russians begin trading on the British Columbia coast. Run, niggah, run? S.C. passes a law making it legal to kill runaway slaves after 50 black slaves are hanged in Charleston, accused of planning another revolt; meanwhile in this decade Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-93), daughter of the gov. of Antigua founds the S.C. indigo industry on her father's plantation, becoming the first important Am. agriculturist; she later marries well-connected Charles Pinckney (-1758), producing a mini-dynasty of DOI signers and diplomats, and contributing to the golden age of Lily White Charleston - South Carolina white $ = indigo + rice + black muscle? In this decade Murfree's Landing in N.C. is founded by William Murfree, growing into the town of Murfreesboro. The Dickinson Mansion on Kitts Hummock Rd. in Dover, Del. is built by the father of Am. founding father John Dickinson.

On hot-hot-hot July 8, 1741 the Great Awakening reaches a peak as Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) delivers his Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God speech in Enfield, Mass., featuring lurid word pictures of Da Judge Bible God Jehovah, who "holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked... He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire"; the Great Awakening splits New England Puritanism into the "Old Lights" and the "New Lights", who go over to the Baptists, Presbyterians, or Methodists; the Am. colonies are prepared for rev. by the Great Awakening? On Dec. 19 Danish-Russian explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering (b. 1681) dies on Bering Island of exposure after discovering Alaska; during his expedition, German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-46) discovers Stellar's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) in the Commander Islands; too bad, it becomes extinct in 1768. On Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve) Bethlehem, Penn. ("America's Christmas City") next to South Mountain is founded by Moravians from Bohemia and Saxony led by David Zeisberger, later going on to hold an annual Bach Festival each May, install a 100-ft. electric star on top of South Mountain for Yuletide celebrations, and become a center for steel and cement production. William Shirley (1694-1771) becomes British gov. of Mass. (until 1759). Russian navigator Alexei Ilyich Chirikov (1703-48) discovers some of the Aleutian Islands, and lands in Calif. The Yaqui Revolt in Mexico (begun 1740) is quashed. The Racist Witch Hunt (Great Negro Plot) of 1741 engulfs burning New York City after 16-y.-o. white indentured servant Mary Burton is promised her freedom for her testimony, and claims that the blacks are planning to burn the town to the ground, after which 13 are burned alive, 18 are hanged, 100 "disappeared", and 154 jailed before the city is whitened up enough to please the monsterizers, after which four whites are executed and 24 imprisoned as a coverup? The original Hollywood Walk of Fame? The myth of Plymouth Rock is born when 95-y.-o. church elder Thomas Faunce (1646-1741) stops the building of a pier on the waterfront of Plymouth, Mass. for awhile with the story that his father, who arrived in 1623 had told him that a small boulder on the tide line near Town Brook is where the Pilgrims had first landed on Dec. 22, 1620 (Forefathers' Day); Hedge's Wharf is built over it in 1749 anyway, but the tip still pokes above its sandy surface, and on Dec. 22, 1774 Col. Theophilus Cotton (1716-82) and the Sons of Liberty remove it and break it in half while attempting to load it on a wagon, putting one half back in the ground and taking the other half to the town square beside a new liberty pole, symbolizing the coming you know what? Count von Zinzendorf visits North Am., pumping up the Moravian sect among whites and Indians (until 1743). Pardon me I never promised you a what? Henry Middleton (1717-84) (later pres. #2 of the First Continental Congress) creates his famous gardens at Middleton Place in S.C. Hans N. Eisenhauer, ancestor of U.S. Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower arrives in the U.S. Andrew Bradford's Am. Magazine becomes the first mag. pub. in North Am. Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) begins pub. The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for All the British Plantations in America, which incl. the first North Am. magazine ads (for the Franklin stove, which looks like an open fireplace); it fails after six issues.

On July 7, 1742 the Battle of Bloody Marsh (Marshes) on St. Simons Island, Ga. is a V for the British, led by Gen. James Oglethorpe over the Spanish, driving them back S to Fla. (St. Augustine) permanently. In Dec. the Battle of Augusta between white settlers of Va. and redskins, er, Indians leads to total white control within a couple of years. The ancient 440-mi. Indian Natchez Trace route between Nashville, Tenn. and Natchez, Miss. (linking the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers) is first used by a Euro, an unnamed Frenchman, and becomes a main Euro trade and transit route until the 19th cent. After inheriting it from an uncle when another of his nephews is disinherited for marrying, rich Huguenot Boston, Mass. merchant Peter Faneuil (1700-43) donates the 2-story (two rows of nine windows on each side, two rows of three windows on each end, and a grasshopper-shaped weather vane on top) Faneuil Hall (pr. FAN-ul) to Boston (built 1740-2); it ends up hosting so many meetings of rev. patriots that it becomes known as the "Cradle of Liberty". The Philadelphia Confession of Faith is pub. Peter Boehler is appointed bishop of the Moravian churches of Am., England, Ireland, and Wales. French-Canadian fur trader brothers Francois de La Verendrye (Vérendrye) (1715-94) and Francois Louis Joseph Gaultier de La Verendrye (Vérendrye) (1717-61) explore South Dakota (S.D.) (1742-3), and found the first white settlement there.

On Jan. 1, 1743 the Verendrye brothers discover the Rocky Mts., and explore Wyoming (Wyo.); on their return they bury a lead plaque at Ft. Pierre, S.D., which is unearthed in 1913. On Mar. 14 the first recorded town meeting in America is held at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Mass. Christopher Sower (Sauer) (Saur) (1695-1758) prints the first German Bible in Am. in Germantown, Penn. Indian yarns for the manufacture of fine textiles are first imported to Lancashire, England. The term "Tommy Atkins" is first used for a British soldier in a letter from Jamaica about a British troop mutiny: "Except for those from North America (mostly Irish Papists) ye Marimes and Tommy Atkins behaved splendidly". Newark Academy in Newark, Del. is chartered by William Penn's sons Thomas and Richard, changing its name to New Ark College in 1833, Delaware College in 1870, and Delaware U. in 1921. Lawrence Washington (1718-52), elder half-brother and mentor of George Washington builds the 2-story 96-ft.-long 30-ft.-deep Mount Vernon mansion in Fairfax County, Va. on the Potomac River, named after his former boss British Adm. Edward "Old Grog" Vernon (1684-1757), who in 1740 ordered that sailor's rum should be watered-down, causing it to be called grog, from his habitual wearing of a grogram (silk-wool-gum taffeta) coat.

In 1744 Benjamin Franklin invents the cast-iron Franklin Stove, which stands away from the walls and looks like a chimney; it is redesigned in 1790 by David R. Rittenhouse so that it actually works.

On June 16, 1745 a British force of 4.2K under Mass. gov. William Shirley and Kittery merchant Sir William Pepperell, 1st Baronet (1696-1759) (who also finances the expedition) takes supposedly impregnable Ft. Louisburg in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada after a 49-day siege, but three years later at Aix-la-Chapelle the fort is stupidly returned under a peace treaty in exchange for Madras; Nathaniel Hawthorne later eulogies Pepperell as "The mighty man of Kittery". Lord Jeffrey Amherst is promoted to Lt. Col., and appointed aide to the duke of Cumberland. Frederick, Md. (Frederick Town), named after Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore (Frederick II the Great?) is settled by German Rhineland Palatinate immigrants, later becoming the initial stop for the Pennsylvania Dutch, after which they migrate through the Shenandoah Valley to W Piedmont in N.C. Russian Cossack explorer Emelian Basov explores the Aleutian Islands. Benjamin Franklin founds the Am. Philosophical Society "for the promotion of useful knowledge among the British plantations in America", becoming the oldest learned society in Am.; its members later incl. 15 DOI signers, 18 members of the Constitutional Convention, and 13 U.S. presidents. Benjamin Franklin pub. Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress, claiming that marriage is "the proper remedy" for sexual urges, but that if a man finds "sex inevitable", he should "prefer old women to young ones" for eight reasons, the final one being "they are so grateful". The number of newspapers in British America reaches 22: 7 in New England, 10 in the middle colonies, and 5 in the south. Yale College in Conn. receives a new royal charter. The Georgian Leinster House (originally Kildare House) in Dublin, Ireland is built by James Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare, and designed by Richard Cassels (1690-1751) (finished 1747); it is later used as the model for the U.S. White House.

On Aug. 19-20, 1746 Ft. Massachusetts at the W border of the Province of Mass. Bay is attacked and destroyed by the French allied with Indians. On Oct. 22 the Presbyterian College of New Jersey (becomes Princeton U. in 1896) receives its charter as the successor to William Tennent's Log Cabin; James Madison and Aaron Burr later attend, and are in the debating club (America's oldest) together.

In 1747 there are measles epidemics in Conn., N.Y., Penn., and S.C. Robert Harper sets up a ferry at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, which grows into the town of Harpers Ferry, W. Va. - no apostrophes, please? The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (Shakers), led by James Wardley secede from the less shaking Quakers in Manchester, England, going on to build 19 communities and gain 200K converts over the next cent., concentrated in New England, N.Y., Ohio, and Ky., although never more than 6K at a time since they require strict sexual abstinence, and getting preggers would be a turnoff, although adoption of orphans is okay; by 2000 they are down to six living at Sabbathday Lake near Auburn, Maine. Benjamin Franklin writes The Speech of Polly Baker, a long article for a British newspaper about Polly Baker, an unwed New Englander prosecuted for giving birth to a 5th illegitimate child, but whose impassioned plea causes the judges to acquit her and one of them to marry her the next day; three decades later Franklin finally admits that the article is a hoax - pull my finger and I'll tell you?

On July 18, 1748 the Battle of Beukendaal (Beechdale) near Schenectady, N.Y. sees the Dutch farmer militia put up a fight against French and Indians. Fur traders from Penn. and Va. begin establishing contacts with the natives in the Ohio River Valley; George II grants 500K acres in W Va. to the Ohio Land Co.; self-made man Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) retires from the printing business to concentrate on scientific experiments, buys a farm in the garden colony of N.J., changes his mind, and organizes a military assoc. for the defense of Penn. John Findlay discovers a passage through the Blue Ridge Mts. of the Appalachians, which he names the Cumberland Gap. The Shawnees and Iroquois hold a grand council which appoints Seneca chief Tanaghrisson (Tanacharison) (1700-54) as "half-king" over the Ohio Indians, and gives Oneida chief Scarouady ("on the other side of the sky") supervision over the Shawnees as the other "half-king". The British Board of Trade comes under the leadership of an aggressive new pres. who renders it more active and authoritative (ends 1761). The British navy and army settle relative ranks by dividing navy capts. into three grades, with those not eligible for promotion to rear adm. called "masters and commanders", and the letter C placed after their names; the rank is shortened to commander in 1794, with the abbrev. cdr. used in 1826. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-87) of Germany, who arrived in Charleston, S.C. on Sept. 23, 1742 and settled in Philadelphia organizes Am. Dutch, Swedish, and German Lutherans into the Pennsylvania Ministerium, becoming the first Lutheran church synod in North Am. A subscription library opens in Charleston, S.C.

In 1748 16-y.-o. George Washington meets his distant relative, Scottish peer Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693-1781), who administers the 1649 land grand known as the Northern Neck Proprietary, and hires him to survey his lands W of the Blue Ridge Mts.; next July 24 he surveys and plats the town of Washington, Va. (AKA Little Washington) 70 mi. W of modern-day Washington, D.C. (modern-day pop. 135), which is officially established as a town by the Va. gen. assembly on Dec. 14, 1795 after it reaches a pop. of 200, becoming the first U.S. town named after the Father of Our Country.

On Jan. 3, 1749 N.H. gov. (1741-67) Benning Wentworth (1696-1770) begins issuing the New Hampshire Grants on lands in Vt. claimed by New York. On Jan. 11 the Ohio Co. petitions King George for a grant of lands, and proposes to build a fort there; the petition is granted on Mar. 16. In Apr. Benjamin Franklin surmises that lightning is a form of electricity, and warns that it is dangerous to take shelter under a tree during a "thunder gust". On May 11 the Consolidation Act reorganizes the British Navy. On June 1 Francois Piquet founds a mission at Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg), N.Y., which attracts many Iroquois to the French side; in June the Atlantic seaport of Halifax is founded in Acadia in Nova Scotia on a hill overlooking Chebucto Bay (Halifax Harbor) by Gen. Edward Cornwallis as a countermeasure to the fortress of Louisbourg, going on to become Canada's main Atlantic seaport and capital of Nova Scotia. In the summer Benjamin Franklin kills turkeys with the electricity from a big battery, commenting that "The birds killed in this manner eat uncommonly tender". The gov. of New France sends an exploratory force under Montreal-born Capt. Pierre-Joseph de Celeron de Blainville to claim the Ohio River for France and establish the first settlement for the Ohio Co. A fortress is established in Halifax, Novia Scotia. The French trading post of Ft. Rouille (Rouillé) (later Toronto) in Ontario, Canada is founded; it is abandoned in 1759. Georgia becomes a crown colony. Alexandria, Va. is founded. After receiving his surveyor's license from the College of William and Mary, 17-y.-o. George Washington begins working as a land surveyor at a stone office bldg. in White Post, Va. for Thomas Fairfax (OE "fair-haired"), 6th Lord and Baron of Cameron (1693-1781), the only English lord in the Am. colonies, setting boundaries for new farms; he later uses his experience to plan troop movements in the French-Indian War. The U. of Penn. in Philly is founded by Benjamin Franklin. Peter Harrison begins building the Redwood Library in Newport, R.I. (finished 1758), which becomes the first lending library in Am.

Country	Leader	From	To
England	George II (1683-1760)	1727	Oct. 25, 1760
France	Louis XV the Well-Beloved (1710-74)	Sept. 1, 1715	May 10, 1774
Austria	Maria Theresa (1717-80)	Oct. 20, 1740	Nov. 29, 1780
Russia	Empress Elizabeth Petrovna Romanov (1709-62)	1741	Jan. 5, 1762
Papacy	Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758)	1740	May 3, 1758

In 1750 world pop. is 800M; Europe: 140M; Am. colonies: 1.2M (incl. 236K slaves, 206K living below Penn. in the South) and 1M natives; London: 750K; Beijing: 900K. Slaves are purchased in Africa with rum: 100 gal. for an adult male slave, 85 for an adult female, 65 for a child; at the delivery point a slave brings £20 sterling.

On May 11, 1751 the Penn. Hospital is founded in Philly by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond (1712-84), becoming the first Am. public secular hospital; meanwhile Philly founds the first police force in the U.S. - that's mightly brotherly of you? On Nov. 1, 1751 the Liberty Bell is ordered to be cast and placed in the new Penn. Statehouse (later named Independence Hall) (begun 1731) to celebrate the 50th anniv. of Pennsylvania's Charter of Privileges; it is inscribed with the motto "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof Lev. XXV X by order of the assembly of the province of Pennsylvania for the State House in Philada Pass and Stow Philada MDCCLIII"; John Dock Pass and John Stow did the casting; it cracks on the first ringing, and is recast twice over the next two years, and ends up with the word "Pennsylvania" misspelled. In Dec. 1751 one of the members of the Pennsylvania Assembly dies, and Benjamin Franklin (a clerk of the assembly since 1736) readily accepts election to his seat, launching his career in politics. In 1751 Benjamin Franklin sells his slave couple, telling his mother that he did not like having "Negro servants", and that they are uneconomical. In 1751 19-y.-o. cherry popper, er, cherry tree chopper George Washington visits Barbados, becoming his only trip abroad.

In Jan. 1752 the Gregorian Calendar is introduced in Great Britain and its possessions, incl. the Am. colonies, causing Sept. 14 (Thur.) to follow Sept. 2, dropping 11 days (one more than in 1582 because after 170 years the Julian system has slipped another day); the year now ends on Dec. 31 (Sun.) rather than Mar. 24; as usual with the ignorant Anglo masses, the belief that the govt. has stolen 11 days of their lives causes riots; Sweden follows suit next year, sans riots. On Mar. 23, 1752 the Halifax Gazette, the first English newspaper in Canada begins pub. by John Bushnell. On May 10, 1752 after Louis VI requests that Benjamin Franklin's proposed lightning rod experiments be attempted, naturalists Comte de Buffon and Thomas Francois D'Alibard dragoon a retired soldier to hold a 40-ft. iron rod in a storm and draw sparks in the village of Marly on the N outskirts of Paris; the experiment is then repeated dozens of times across France, making Franklin a celeb; meanwhile, having waited for the steeple of Philly's Christ Church to be finished, 46-y.-o. Franklin performs his famous kite experiments with lightning from a shed in June, using a silk kite flown by his 22-y.-o. son William; news of his fame in France reaches him in July-Aug., and he doesn't report his own experiments until Oct.; the first lightning rods to be put in service are erected in Philadelphia in late June and early July. On June 21, 1752 after Marquis Duquesne arrives at Quebec to be gov.-gen. of New France, the Ohio Indian village of Pickawillany is attacked by a party of Indians led by Charles Michel de Langlade (1729-1802) of New France to prevent them from trading with the English. On Nov. 4, 1752 after 6'2" 20-y.-o. George Washington is appointed adjutant in the Va. militia (resigns 1759), with Thomas Jefferson later calling him "the best horseman of his time", he is initiated into the Freemasons at Fredericksburg, Va. Lodge #4, then is passed next Mar. 3 and raised next Aug. 4; the Freemaons at this time are still fairly pro-Christian (until after the U.S. Civil War); Washington is only known to attend four meetings in his life. In 1752 Va. passes a law making it a felony to "put out an eye, slit the nose, bite or cut off a nose, or lip"; in 1772 they amend it to include "gouging, plucking or putting out an eye".

In summer 1753 47-y.-o. retired (since 1748) Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) of Penn. is given honorary degrees by Harvard and Yale, and also receives the Royal Society medal for his experiments with electricity; along with William Hunter of Va. he is appointed to share the top post office job in British Am., known as the Deputy (Joint) Postmaster for the Colonies; nepotism-loving Franklin proceeds to give jobs to his son, brothers, and other relatives, but he establishes the first home-delivery system and dead letter office, cutting to one day the delivery time of a letter from New York City to Philly within a year of taking office; of course now his own pubs. can reach a wider audience, killing two birds with one stone, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, a penny saved is a penny earned, yada yada yada; meanwhile in Oct. 1 after being appointed one of three commissioners from Penn. to attend a summit conference with Delaware and Six Nation Indian leaders at Carlisle, halfway between Philly and the Ohio River, who are sore over the Walking Purchase, Franklin gets to observe their unity and explanation of their Great Law, causing him to get his idea of "Join, or Die", which he pub. next year; too bad, the conference doesn't satisfy them, so they drift to the French side, eventually attacking frontier settlements and driving Scots-Irish (read Protestant Irish) and German refugees eastward. On Sept. 25, 1753 the first steam engine is imported into the colonies (N.J.). Also in 1753 the trustees' charter expires, and Georgia becomes the last royal colony. Also in 1753 immigrants from Britain, Germany and Switzerland revolt against British policies in Nova Scotia, causing the British authorities to begin suspecting the Acadians too.

In 1754 the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War) in North Am. begins (ends 1763); the British Board of Trade asks each colony to send delegates to a conference to be held in Albany, N.Y. in June to reaffirm the allegiance of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederation and discuss ways among themselves of unifying their colonial defense against the Frogs; in Feb. some Va. militia begin building a fort at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers (where they unite to form the Ohio River), which on Apr. 17 is attacked by a large French and Indian force, causing the Virginians to withdraw; the French then finish building Ft. Duquesne on the site of modern-day Pittsburgh, Penn.; on May 9 Benjamin Franklin pub. an editorial in the Penn. Gazette blaming the French success "on the present disunited state of the British colonies"; next to the article he prints the first and most famous editorial cartoon in U.S. history, a snake cut into pieces, labelled with names of the colonies, bearing the caption, "Join, or Die" (head=N.E., N.Y., N.J., Penn., Mass., Va., N.C., S.C.=tail); on May 28 the first bloodshed is at Uniontown, Penn.; in June the British build Ft. Necessity in Penn., which the French attack on July 3, and on July 4 (bad day?) George Washington surrenders it after the Mingos desert; Penn. Quakers show how racism trumps pacifism when they withdraw from the Penn. Assembly to allow the war party to vote the money and laws needed to prosecute the war without dirtying their own hands? On June 19-July 10, 1754 against the prospect of war between France and Britain, reps. from Md., N.Y., Penn., Mass., Conn., R.I. and N.H. meet in Albany, N.Y., where the Six Nations, led by Mohawk chief Tiyanoga (Hendrick Peters) (1680-1755) accept £500 ($90K) worth of wampum, and renew their alliance with the English, leaving at the beginning of July; Benjamin Franklin and wealthy Mass. shipping merchant Thomas Hutchinson draw up the Albany Plan of Union, calling for a federal "general government" that would handle nat. defense and westward expansion, with a nat. congress composed of reps. selected by each state in proportion to pop. and wealth, and a pres.-gen. appointed by the king; it is approved, then sent to the colonial assemblies and Parliament for approval, but is rejected by all; Franklin is convinced to the end of his life that this plan could have prevented the Am. Rev.

On Apr. 14, 1755 the govs. of the British provinces of Va. (Dinwiddle), N.C. (Dobbs), Penn., Md. (Sharpe), N.Y. (Delancy), and Mass. (William Shirley) meet in Alexandria, Va. with newly-arrived (with two regiments of regulars, but no horses and wagons) British CIC Gen. Edward Braddock (1695-1755) to plan a strategy to force the French from North Am., deciding on a 4-fold attack; after the Wagon Affair, where he personally travels all over Penn. to talk farmers into lending horses and wagons for them, 1.4K British and Am. forces under Gen. Braddock, led by volunteer staff officer Col. George Washington hack a road through the wilderness to take Ft. Duquesne (on the site of modern-day Pittsburgh, Penn.), reaching the Monongahela River (branch of the Ohio River) on July 8; meanwhile 2.1K troops from New England under Col. George Scott (-1767) and Maj.-Gen. John Winslow (1703-74) (great-grandson of Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow) sail from Boston up the coast on three warships and 33 transports to the Isthmus of Chignecto in late May, landing on June 3 at Ft. Lawrence in Nova Scotia, housing a few hundred British regulars, the combined force under Col. Robert Monckton (1726-82) (who is far younger than Winslow but a true Brit not a Yankee, hence is given command) marching for Ft. Beausejour (Beauséjour) on June 4, taking it from the French on June 16 and renaming it Ft. Cumberland (abandoning inferior Ft. Lawrence for it), followed on June 18 by Ft. Gaspereau near the mouth of the Gaspareaux River SE of Port Elgin, New Brunswick at Baie Verte on the Northumberland Strait, and on June 30 by St. John; by the end of June all of N Arcadia is under English control; on July 6 the retreating French from Fts. Beausejour and Gaspereaux reach Ft. Louisbourg (constructed in 1720-40), which is one of the most extensive forts in North Am. but is fortified for sea-based assaults only; on July 9 disregarding the warnings of his Am. officers that there might be an ambush, Braddock is surprised and defeated 7 mi. E of the fort at the Battle of the Monongahela (Wilderness) (Braddock's Field) by a smaller force of Indians and French in Indian costume, and Braddock and every officer except Washington are killed or mortally wounded, along with more than half of the force (500 killed, 500 wounded of 1.3K); the Indian chief orders his men to aim specially at 6'2" proud strutting Washington on his white horse, but he isn't wounded despite taking two bullets in his hat, four in his coat, and having two horses shot out from under him?; in 1770 Washington revisits the site, along with the Indian chief, who extols him, saying, "My rifles but for you knew not how to miss... You were protected by the Great Spirit and can never die in battle, and will become the ruler of a great nation"; Washington orders Braddock buried in the road and gives the funeral sermon as enemy forces approach, then has the wagons and cannons rolled over the grave to hide its location, and they retreat to Philadelphia after abandoning most of their artillery and supplies; 21-y.-o. Daniel Boone, who was born near modern-day Reading, Penn. and moved with his family to Holman's Ford on the Yadkin River in N.C. in 1753 serves with the Am. forces.

On July 28, 1755 the Acadian Expulsion (Great Upheaval) (1755-63) sees the British decide to forcefully relocate 6K French Acadians who won't swear allegiance to the British crown from Nova Scotia to British colonies from Mass. to S.C., first neutralizing their military threat with the Bay of Fundy Campaign; on Aug. 10 after Marshfield, Mass.-born Maj.-Gen. John Winslow (1703-74) leads his men to the Isthmus of Minas, they seize 400 unsuspecting Acadian men from Ft. Cumberland (Beausejour) and oversee their deportation by ship at Grand Pre, with Winslow calling it "very disagreeable to my natural make and temper"; over the next six years 11K Acadians are deported from Canada; Acadians don't begin arriving on the Golden Coast of La. until 1764 - kershaw? On Sept. 2 the Battle of Petticodiac near Hillsborough is a V for the Acadians and Mikmaqs led by French gen. Charles Deschamps de Boishebert (Boishébert) et de Raffetot (1727-97) over the British, who skedaddle after three hours and the loss of only one man (vs. 50 KIA and 60 injured on the Acadian side), allowing 200 families to escape deportation and resettle between Shediac and Cocagne.

On Sept. 8, 1755 the Battle of Lake George sees British forces under new supt. of Indian affairs N of the Carolinas and Ohio River maj. gen. Sir William Johnson (1715-74) (who as supt. of Six Nations affairs since 1744 was instrumental in getting them to fight against the French) score their first V over the French, led by Baron Ludwig August von Dieskau (Jean-Armand Dieskau, Baron de Dieskau) (1701-67), and the Indians, led by Mohawk chief King Hendrick, who is KIA; Dieskau is captured and his life spared by Johnson, who is made a baronet with a 5K pound grant and a 100K acre land grant, going on to establish a personal inland empire centered on New York's Mohawk Valley N of the Mohawk River, where he builds Johnson Hall, the site of Johnstown, N.Y.; in Sept. British army surgeon Richard Shuckburgh writes the verses to Yankee Doodle as he cares for the British wounded at the Battle of Lake George; meanwhile colonial forces led by Ephraim Williams Jr. (b. 1715) incl. 200 Mohawk allies walk into an ambush en route to Lake George, and are driven back while suffering heavy losses; Williams is KIA, after which in 1793 after he leaves funds in his will Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. is named after him. On Sept. 21 the name of Ft. Lyman (founded as Ft. Lydius in 1731, then Ft. Lyman in 1755) S of Lake George and N of Saratoga Springs near Hudson River Falls (where Indians start carrying their canoes to the headwaters of Lake Champlain) is changed to Ft. Edward in honor of George III's brother Edward, duke of York and Albany.

In 1755 Benjamin Franklin pub. Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc., which argues that Europe is too crowded, and that the British should expand into North Am. to increase their pop. and power, and that the Saxons are the best race to do it, because "the number of purely white people in the world is proportionably very small", hence the importation of Africans is undesirable because they will darken the white pop., which should remain "lovely", along with the red; "All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth"; "Why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red?"; too bad, he adds "Why should the Palatine Boors [Dutch and Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements?", causing the Penn. Dutch to turn against him, helping him lose the Oct. 1764 Penn. Provincial Assembly election.

On Feb. 17, 1756 incompetent ("indecision was one of his strongest features" - Benjamin Franklin), arrogant, sluggish and tyrannical Scottish earl John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun (1705-82) is appointed capt.-gen and gov.-in-chief of Va., followed on Mar. 20 by CIC of British forces in North Am. (until Mar. 1758), going on to bring in scummy soldiers recruited from jails and poorhouses, or even shanghaied off the streets of New York City, and force citizens to quarter them in their homes, even after they build barracks for them, and bring his lavish aristocratic lifestyle with him, throwing lavishly liquored parties and showing no respect for churches or churchgoers, causing grievances that are remembered when the Declaration of Independence is written in 1776. Also in 1756 the gov. of Penn. and his council break with Quaker tradition and declare war on the Delaware and Shawnee, offering a bounty of 130 Spanish dollars for "the scalp of every male Indian enemy above the age of twelve years produced as evidence of their being killed", causing six leading Quakers to resign from the Penn. Assembly; William Penn's 1681 dream of a "holy experiment" is kaput after 75 years? Also in 1756 cotton velvet is first made in Bolton in Lancashire, England (where the cotton industry was introduced around 1600), causing cotton to become fashionable, after which Lancashire's exports to increase from £46K this year to £200K in 1764; most of the spinning and weaving is still done by cottage industry, who finally adopt John Kay's flying shuttle of 1733.

On Aug. 9, 1757 French Gen. Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm (1712-59), CIC of French forces in North Am. captures Ft. William Henry on Lake George (Lac Sainte Sacrament) in Upstate N.Y., commanded by Irish-born Lt. Col. George Monro (1700-57) (while Monro's daughter Cora's loverboy Hawkeye is held in chains awaiting execution and Magua plans a bloodthirsty revenge on White-Hair?); the returning British soldiers are viciously ambushed and massacred by the Abenaki (Abnaki) (allies of the French), and the incident becomes notorious as a French infraction of the internat. laws of war.

In 1757 the first debt-free fiat colonial scrip is issued in the U.S., with Benjamin Franklin uttering the soundbyte: "In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called colonial scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay no one."

On Mar. 3, 1758 Col. Lord Jeffrey Amherst (1717-97), aide-de-camp to the incompetent Duke of Cumberland is promoted by William Pitt to the rank of maj.-gen., with a commission to be English CIC at the siege of the formidable French fortress of Ft. Louisbourg on the St. Lawrence River; he arrives in May from the Elbe River in Halifax Harbor on a foggy day to take command of the British army, joining Cornish Adm. Edward Boscawen (1711-61) and brig. gen. James Wolfe (1727-59), then leading 12K British and colonial forces (plus 13K seamen) to French-held Ft. Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, which is defended by 3K French regulars, 1K militia, 2.6K seamen, and a large band of Indians, all under Chevalier Augustin de Drucour (1703-62), and falls on July 27 after a 7-week siege, becoming the final triumph of British power in North Am.; Lord Amherst's aide-de-camp Billy Amherst is sent to London with the news, causing a big celebration with fireworks and parades; Wolfe is promoted to maj. gen., and becomes the first to use the word "Yankee" (from the Dutch word "Janke" meaning Little John, slang for a pirate) to refer to New England soldiers under his command, with the soundbyte: "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance."

On Oct. 4, 1759 in retribution for the 1757 Abenaki massacre of British soldiers at Ft. William Henry in Upstate N.Y., "White Devil" Maj. Robert Rogers and his force of 150-200 Rangers attack and destroy the Abenaki village of Saint-Francis-du-Lac in Quebec, then undergo a nightmarish trek home, resorting to cannibalism to survive until relieved by the British, as depicted in the 1940 Spencer Tracy film Northwest Passage - I feel naughty doing this?

Country	Leader	From	To
England	George II (1683-1760)	1727	Oct. 25, 1760
France	Louis XV the Well-Beloved (1710-74)	Sept. 1, 1715	May 10, 1774
Austria	Maria Theresa (1717-80)	Oct. 20, 1740	Nov. 29, 1780
Russia	Empress Elizabeth Petrovna Romanov (1709-62)	1741	Jan. 5, 1762
Prussia	Frederick II the Great (1712-86)	May 31, 1740	Aug. 17, 1786
Papacy	Pope Clement XIII (1693-1769)	1758	Feb. 2, 1769

In 1760 the pop. of the British Am. colonies reaches 1.5M.

In spring 1760 British gen. Jeffrey Amherst, new gov. of Quebec (until 1763) raises more men and money to finish off the French in North Am., planning for Scottish-born brig. gen. James Murray (1721-94) (successor to the late gen. James Wolfe) to move upriver from Quebec, brig. gen. William de Haviland to take the Isle aux Noix on Lake Champlain then break into the St. Lawrence Valley, and Amherst to replace whimpy Gen. Thomas Gage at Oswego and feint to La Galette than take Montreal in a surprise attack. In Apr. 1760 British brig. gen. James Murray's garrison at Quebec is sieged by superior French forces under marshal Francis-Gaston de Levis (Lévis), Duc de Levis (1719-87), and saved by the arrival of British ships; Murray and 2.5K men then sail from Quebec for Montreal on July 15; on Aug. 10 Gen. Amherst and his 11K forces leave Oswego for La Galette and Montreal, and on Aug. 10 Col. Haviland and his 3.5K forces (incl. Rogers' Rangers) leave Crown Point for Montreal; "Three armies advancing from three different points hundreds of miles apart, by routes full of difficulty, and with no possibility of intercommunication, were to meet at the same place at the same time or, failing to do so, run the risk of being destroyed in detail" (Francis Parkman, 1899); Murray arrives in late Aug., Haviland takes Isle aux Noix and arrives on Sept. 6; Amherst sails through the Thousand Islands, captures Ft. Lévis in three days, crosses the St. Lawrence Rapids (Galops, Point Iroquois, Point Cardinal, Rapid Plat, Long Sault, Cascades Rapids, Cedar Rapids) (losing 84 men), and arrives on Sept. 6 at Lachine, 9 mi. from Montreal, joining with the others and marching to Montreal like clockwork; with only 2.4K regulars, and plagued by refugees, Gov. Vandreuil sends his aid Louis Antoine de Bougainville to offer terms, but Amherst replies, "I have come to take Canada, and I will take nothing less", and on Sept. 8 Vaudreuil cedes Canada unconditionally to the British Crown; Amherst becomes gov. of Canada, and is kind to the French civilians, withdrawing to his winter quarters in New York in a triumphal procession, and presented by Nicholas Roosevelt with a snuffbox engraved "Conqueror of the Canadian Gauls" in Latin; Amherst later brags that he had captured 16 French battalions.

On Oct. 25, 1760 English king (since June 22, 1727) George II (b. 1683) dies, becoming the last English king interred at Westminster Abbey, and on Oct. 25 his shy, stubborn, dull, backward, authoritarian but well-intentioned 22-y.-o. family-man old-man-take-a-look-at-my-life-I'm-a-lot-like-you grandson ("the Farmer King") George III (1738-1820) succeeds him as the 52nd monarch of England (until Jan. 29, 1820), becoming the first English-born Hanoverian king; his first speech from the throne incl. the killer soundbyte "Glory in the name of Briton", which adds to his popularity; his homely virtues and touching dutifulness with his homely wife Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818) (an amateur botanist who helps found Kew Gardens) (namesake of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, N.C.) endear him to the middle class; they have a gaggling brood of 15 royal rugrats, 13 of whom survive to adulthood (9 boys, 6 girls); but look into the big black tulip, by 1788 his reign is disrupted by the walrus family disease of porphyria (IEP), which makes him go mad as a hatter, and his popularity to tank at first, but turn into grudging respect for his good intentions (can't blame you for wanting to try?); PM William Pitt the Elder is soon out on his glass onion, and Gen. Amherst's promised peerage is reduced to a knighthood, the governorship of Va., and the Order of the Knights of the Bath (a cool silver insignia for his ceremonial armor), and his requests to return to England are ignored; British subsidies to Prussia are stopped; meanwhile Harvard-educated Mass. atty. James Otis Jr. (1725-83) resigns as king's advocate gen. to defend the merchants of Boston, who get pissed-off at renewed Writs of Assistance to royal customs collectors to search their establishments for suspected violations of the 1733 Sugar Act; Queen Charlotte becomes the first English queen to have young ladies presented to her in drawing rooms to acknowledge their "coming out" in society, starting a tradition lasting until the 1950s - play this for a thousand?

In 1760 super-educated minister-scientist-physician Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776) (first English colonial rep. to the Iroquois Nation) becomes acting British gov. of New York (until 1762, then 1763-5 and 1769-71), going on to stick it to the rebels for being too uneducated to see the advantages of staying loyalist.

In 1760 a lengthy boundary dispute between the Penn and Calvert families is settled by an agreement to have English surveyors Charles Mason (1728-86) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-79) use their latest methods and settle things; they conduct their survey in 1763-7, determining the Charles-Jeremiah, er, Mason-Dixon Line, the boundary between Penn. and Md. at parallel 39 deg 43 min 17.6 sec. N, which is ratified by the British crown in 1769, and comes to mark the division between the Northern free-soil and Southern slave states.

Also in 1760 Briton Hammon, a servant or slave of Gen. John Winslow (1703-74) (ancestor of TLW?) pub. A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Suprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man-Servant to General Winslow of Marshfield in New-England; Who Returned to Boston, After Having Been Absent Almost Thirteen Years, Containing an Account of the Many Hardships He Underwent from the Time He Left His Master's House, in the Year 1747, to the Time of His Return to Boston, becoming the first pub. prose work written by a black person.

In Feb. 1761 after the Liberty Bell in Philly is rung to celebrate the ascension to the throne of George III, "Barnstable Patriot" James Otis Jr. (1725-83) gives a brilliant 5-hour speech in the Old Town House of Boston against the renewed Writs of Assistance to royal customs collectors to allow them to search merchant establishments for suspected violations of the 1733 Sugar Act, making the quantum leap of declaring that any act passed by Parliament contrary to the "natural rights" of the colonists is invalid, wowing Samuel Adams, who utters the soundbyte: "Mr. Otis' oration breathed into this nation the breath of life...then and there was the first scene of the first act of the opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain... American independence was then and there born"; he loses, but becomes popular, getting elected to the Mass. legislature in May; too bad, he gets in a fight in 1769 and is cut on the head with a sword, causing him to go into on-again-off-again insanity for life. Meanwhile in summer 1761 Benjamin Franklin makes a trip to Holland and Flanders, where he observes them singing and dancing on the Sabbath and comments, "I looked around for God's judgments but saw no signs of them"; in Leyden he meets with Pieter van Musschenbroek, inventor of the Leyden Jar, who dies two weeks after Franklin leaves; ever-loyal Franklin cuts his trip short to attend the coronation of George III in Sept.

In 1761 Harper's (Harpers) Ferry in Md. and Va. (later W. Va.) is founded at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers by Robert Harper for settlers moving into the Shenandoah Valley.

Also in 1761 British land grants in New England begin to require white pine trees suitable for ship masts to be cut only under license by the crown; the first flag used by American revolutionaries bears the image of a single white pine in protest. >

On Mar. 17, 1762 the first St. Patrick's Day parade is held by English soldiers in New York City.

In 1762 George Washington becomes vestryman of the Anglican Pohick Church, "the Mother Church of Northern Virginia" (founded 1724), which he helps rebuild and survey the land for in 1774, resigning in 1784 after returning from the Am. Rev. because he can't keep supporting a church headed by his ex-king George III.

In 1763 Scottish and Scots-Irish (codewords for Protestant) settlers arrive in record numbers in North Am., and fan out from Philly.

On Feb. 10, 1763 after House of Commons leader (since 1762) Sir Henry Fox bribes, intimidates and persuades the House to approve it (and is raised to the peerage for it, becoming 1st Baron Holland), the 1763 Treaty of Paris between Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal, negotiated for France by foreign minister Cesar Gabriel de Choiseul, Duc de Praslin (1712-85) ends the French and Indian War along with the Seven Years' War (begun 1756), giving Britain's ally Frederick II the Great of Prussia a V; "Half a continent... changed hands at the scratch of a pen" (Francis Parkman); French imperialist dreams are dashed bigtime, and in return for the #1 sugar island of Guadalupe, France cedes to Britain all claims to Acadia, Canada (Quebec), Cape Breton, Louisiana E of the Mighty Mississippi except Orleans Island, plus all of India; Spain cedes Florida to Britain in return for British evacuation of Havana (to prevent Britain from going on to swallow up Mexico), and receives Louisiana from France, which is resisted locally by French colonists; St. Vincent Island is ceded to Britain (until 1779), along with Dominica Island; displaced Acadians begin to head for Louisiana, where they become known as Cajuns, while Spanish colonists leave Florida for Havana, and British colonists with their slaves head for Florida; Spain regains Cuba and the Philippines, while Portugal regains Colonia and Rio Grande do Sul; the Spanish begin transforming Havana into the most heavily fortified city in the New World, building the Fortress of San Carlos de la Cabana over 11 years, becoming the biggest Spanish fortification in the New World, equipped with cannons made in Barcelona; France is allowed to keep a trading post in Bengal, India, and to keep Guadeloupe Martinique, Belle Isle, Maria Galante and St. Lucia, and also to have fishing rights on the Newfoundland Banks, with the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon for fish curing, otherwise the French empire in America is, er, history?; Britain keeps one of the French posts on the coast of Guinea and loses the other; Britain recovers Minorca; France is bankrupt, and its navy a wreck, but war secy. (Cesar's cousin) Etienne Francois, Duc de Choiseul (1719-85) predicts that the British Am. colonies will rebel, and begins rebuilding the French navy to take advantage of it?; Britain is now numero uno, but the British Parliament then proceeds to fart away its American colonies via a series of dumbass Acts?; Lord Newcastle tries to organize an opposition to the Treaty of Paris and fails, finding that all who vote against it soon lose any offices or pensions they hold from the crown as punishment; by using this power the king gradually builds up a group in the House of Commons known as the King's Friends - if you look like a tree he'll talk to you?

On Apr. 5. 1764 the widely-flouted 1733 Molasses Act about to expire, Lord Grenville gets Parliament to pass the Revenue Act of 1764 AKA the Sugar Act in order to tax the Am. colonies to help pay for a British standing army of 10K to guard against possible French attacks; it renews the duty on molasses, but halves it to three pence per gal. in hopes of putting smugglers out of business, and introduces new taxes on foreign textiles, wines, coffee, indigo and sugar; Grenville hopes to bring in £45K a year to be used "toward defraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing, the said colonies and plantations", but only succeeds in angering Americans with its presumption that the Brits could tax Americans without their consent; to rub it in, on Apr. 19 Parliament passes the Currency Act, forbidding the issue of colonial scrip (paper money) by all Am. colonies, not just New England (as dictated in 1751); existing paper money in the colonies is suddenly devalued, adding to their economic shock - the outlawing of colonial scrip is the main cause of the Am. Rev.?

In 1764 Mass. assembly leader James Otis Jr. (head of the Mass. branch of the Committees of Correspondence) pub. the pamphlet The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, causing Lord Grenville to have a subordinate prepare an answer, claiming that everybody in the empire has "virtual representation", whether they get to return a member to Parliament or not, incl. large cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield in England itself, which have no right to elect a member - yah but we're Americans, and have that little ole 3K-mile pond between us?

On Feb. 13, 1765 after Lord Grenville, needing more money to maintain the 10K troops stationed in the American colonies, and wanting a tax affecting all the colonies, not just New England, devises a new stamp tax, and presents it to colonial agents in London, who unanimously protest it, but fail to offer an alternative or agree on the proportions to be raised by each colony, while Benjamin Franklin representing four colonies, failing to sense the danger, makes a big boo boo and proposes one of his friends as a stamp agent, Grenville lays his proposal before Parliament, where only three speeches are given in opposition, including the big one by Dublin-born barrel-of-fun Col. Isaac Barre (Barré) (1726-1802) (son of a French refugee), who says that past British agents sent out to them "caused the blood of these Sons of Liberty to recoil within them"; on Mar. 22 Britain passes the Stamp Act of 1765 to tax American colonists, to go into effect on Nov. 1; it requires that govt. stamps be paid for in silver and used on almost all legal documents, many commercial papers such as ship clearance papers, newspapers and pamphlets, almanacs, deeds, diplomas, even dice and playing cards; this is the first direct British tax on the colonies, and public outrage causes royal officials to be attacked by mobs, agreements to be struck among merchants to boycott British goods, and the convening of the Stamp Act Congress; radical sentiment is crystalized, and new leaders arise, including young merchant John Hancock(y), Samuel Adams, and his lawyer cousin John; in London, Ben Franklin's waffling over the Stamp Act arouses public suspicion that he had a hand in framing it, and his ass becomes grass and they want to mow it. On Mar. 24 Parliament passes the Quartering Act, requiring the Am. colonies to supply British troops with provisions and to barrack them or allow their use of inns and vacant bldgs.; New York City, the HQ of the British forces is hardest hit with this new tax as they see it as supporting a standing occupation army to oppress them. Wake up people, stop it? On May 13 after "real Whig" Patrick Henry wins a seat on the Va. House of Burgesses, and gives a series of "torrents of sublime eloquence", they pass the Virginia Resolves, claiming that as Englishmen, Virginians can only be taxed by their own reps. and governed by laws passed with their own consent; on May 29 Henry turns it up by giving a speech to the Va. Provincial Convention calling for revolution: "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third..."; interrupted by cries of "Treason!", he replies, "If this be treason, make the most of it", and then utters the immortal soundbye, "But as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" On June 8 the Mass. House of Reps. issues a circular letter inviting all colonial assemblies to send delegates to a New York conference to appeal against the Stamp Act; Mayflower descendant James Warren (1726-1808) of Plymouth becomes a Mass. rep., rising to speaker and pres., then ending up as George Washington's paymaster; his wife Mercy Otis Warren is a brain babe who later becomes a propagandist for the rebel side. Treaty of Paris hero Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland is forced to resign as paymaster gen., and in 1769 charges of misuse of public funds are brought against him, but the proceedings are stayed by the intervention of George III; meanwhile this year George III has his first brief attack of insanity, and his illness causes a regency bill to be passed by Parliament, arousing his wrath and causing him on July 13 to replace George Grenville with "Old Whig" (pro-colonist) Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham (1730-82) as PM (until July 30, 1766); Pitt refuses to give the new cabinet his support; Rockingham resolves to repeal the Stamp Act, but needs time; Edmund Burke (1729-97), who returned to London in 1764 becomes Rockingham's private secy. (until 1766). Would you have a stamp on ya? On Aug. 14 the Liberty Tree in Boston, Mass. (a great elm in Hanover Square) (1646-1775) is dedicated; the militant Sons of Liberty, founded by Alexander McDougall (1731-86), John Lamb (1735-1800), Marinus Willett (1740-1830) et al. to flout the Stamp Act meet underneath it; the Charleston Liberty Tree in S.C. is a live oak. In mid.-Aug. an effigy of Boston's stamp agent is swung from the Liberty Tree, and in the evening a mob carries it through the streets, burns it in front of the stamp office, and destroys it too; another mob sacks the home of lt. gov. (since 1758) Thomas Hutchinson (1711-80) and a local customs officer, causing the latter to resign; stamp agents throughout the colonies are hounded out office. In late Sept. a mob gathers at a Philly coffeehouse, accusing Ben Franklin of supporting the hated Stamp Act, then tries to level his new house, which is saved by the White Oak Boys. On Oct. 7-25 the Stamp Act Congress, consisting of 27 delegates from nine colonies meets in New York, and on Oct. 18 draws up a Declaration of Rights and Grievances of the Colonies, a petition to the mad king for relief, along with a petition to Parliament for repeal of the Stamp Act, acknowledging that the colonies owe "due subordination" to Parliament, and recognize their right to regulate colonial trade, but first officially bringing up the question of the constitutional power of Parliament to levy taxes, which they claim are a free gift granted by the people through their representatives; they leave England no choice but either handle the truth and withdraw the Stamp Act or use force on them and roll the dice - the ball is in their court? On Oct. 31 the Pennsylvania Journal appears sporting a skull and crossbones on its masthead where the stamp is supposed to go to protest the Stamp Act, which is to take effect on Nov. 1; by now the act is a dead letter, and the American boycott of British goods puts on the screws; in the place of British tea the colonists drink sage and sassafras, and wear homespun garments as a symbol of defiance - the first hippies? On Nov. 1 a crowd protesting the Stamp Act approaches the coach of N.Y. gov. Cadwallader Colden, seizes it and adds it to their parade, smashing it and using it in their Bowling Green bonfire. In Nov. the Privy Council officially defers action on Franklin's anti-Penn petition, effectively killing it. After the French depart, British trader (first with a license to collect Wisc. pelts) Alexander Henry visits the Ojibwe, and collects pelts in Lake Superior Wisconsin (Wisc.) (Ouisconsin) (Mescousing) ("grassy place" in Chippewa) (until 1766). In 1765 Rhode Island gov. (1766-58) Stephen Hopkins (1707-85) pub. The Rights of the Colonies Examined, which attacks the Stamp Act, becoming a hit and getting reprinted in London. In 1765 Daniel Dulany pub. Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies for the Purpose of Raising a Revenue by Act of Parliament, a reply to Lord Grenville by a Md. atty., claiming that England is too far away from America for any of its MPs to have common interests or for colonists to influence them.

In Jan. 1766 Parliament convenes, and William Pitt demands that the Stamp Act be repealed "absolutely, totally, and immediately", while at the same time demanding that Parliament assert its authority over the colonies "in as strong terms as possible"; Rockhingham tries a mind game with Parliament, claiming that the colonies accept the principle of "external" taxes, but only reject the "internal" kind; Ben Franklin goes along, begins pamphleting against it in the same terms, and gives a brilliant rehearsed speech on Feb. 13 before Parliament, answering 174 questions directed at him, and forever cementing his rep as America's foremost spokesman as he does their talking for them; after English merchants put in their complaints about losses resulting from the American non-importation agreements, the Stamp Act is repealed as unenforceable on Mar. 18, but to save face Parliament passes the Declaratory Act of Mar. 18, 1766, asserting its constitutional right to tax the colonists when it pleases, but not wording it that way, instead asserting its power to make laws binding on them "in all cases whatsoever"; to foment further trouble, Rockingham reduces the molasses tax from three to one pence per gallon; Franklin's stock rises, and he is soon named the agent for Ga., N.J., Mass., and Penn. On Mar. 5 science-loving Spanish naval officer Antonio de Ulloa (1716-95) arrives in New Orleans to become the first Spanish gov. of West La.; too bad, the French colonists refuse to be ruled by Spics, and he is expelled in 1768 by a Creole uprising. In July Lord Rockingham is dismissed as Lord Treasurer after a quarrel over appointments; the king then invites William Pitt the Elder, "the Great Commoner" to form a weak coalition cabinet which incl. different Whig groups, Tories and King's Friends (which Edmund Burke compares to pigs swilling at a trough); in ill health, William Pitt the Elder is created Earl of Chatham in Kent County, and moves from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, then accepts the sinecure office of Lord of the Privy Seal; Charles Townshend (of whom Horace Walpole says his "abilities are superior to those of all men, and his judgement below that of any man") becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, and guiding force in the ministry, and now has the fate of the American colonies in his hands. In Sept. the Bread and Butter Riots caused by poor harvests rock England, and the British council prohibits the exportation of grain, getting censured in debate in the House of Commons, who fail to outvote them, after which the cabinet becomes unpopular with them; meanwhile, idle students at Harvard College, led by Asa Dunbar (maternail grandfather of Henry David Thoreau) hear about it and stage the Bread and Butter Protest, crying "Behold, our butter stinketh", causing all 155 students to be expelled. James Murray is replaced by Sir Sir Guy Carleton (1724-1808) as gov. of Quebec and gov.-gen. of British North Am. (until 1778). With the colonists taking the fight out of the British, Chief Pontiac signs a truce with the British and is pardoned. N.C. farmers organize Regulators to stop govt. agents from seizing their property when they try to pay taxes with produce and fail to get them to issue paper money. After leaving F. Michilimackinac near modern-day Mackinaw City, Mich. in the spring, Weymouth, Mass.-born soldier Jonathan Carver (1710-80) explores N Lake Michigan, the Door County peninsula in Wisc., and reaches Green Bay, then explores Lake Winnebago to the Grand Portage, then down the Mississippi River to Prarie du Chien, then N to St. Anthony Falls near modern-day Minneapolis, Minn., and into E Iowa; too bad, when he returns he isn't paid, but he makes up for it with his bestselling book pub. in 1778, which first mentions the name "Oregon", and suggests that there might be a mountain range to the W and a continental divide; too bad, the profits are slow to arrive, and he dies broke in London. The Dutch Reformed Queen's College (later Rutgers U.) is founded in New Jersey. Southwark Theater in Philadelphia, Penn. opens, becoming the first permanent theater in the Am. colonies, starting out with Shakespeare's "Katharine and Petruchio" (The Taming of the Shrew). Va. House of Burgesses member (later delegate to the Continental Congress) Richard Bland II (1710-76) pub. An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies; House of Burgesses member proposes the concept of "no taxation without representation"; his cousin Thomas Jefferson calls it "the first pamphlet on the nature of the connection with Great Britain which had any pretension to accuracy of view on that subject... There was more sound matter in his pamphlet than in the celebrated Farmer's letters."

On May 13, 1767 ever-dipsy chancellor of the exchequer Charles "Champagne Charlie" Townshend (1725-67), unphased by the Am. reaction to the Stamp Act, proposes "external taxes" in the House of Commons on glass, paper, lead, paint, dyestuffs, and tea imported to the Am. colonies, and on June 29 Parliament approves the Townshend Acts, incl. the infamous Tea Tax on the American colonies; even though the external vs. internal tax theory of Ben Franklin is conformed to, the colonies still strenuously object, because the hidden purpose is to raise a revenue, and besides, part of the money raised would be used to pay royal governors, freeing them from dependence on colonial legislatures; again mobs attack the royal officials, and a public protest meeting in Boston results in a non-importation agreement; the Sons of Liberty, led by bankrupt brewer and Harvard grad. Samuel Adams (1722-1803) once again dance around the Liberty Tree near Boston Common; meanwhile Townshend dies suddenly on Sept. 4, and just doesn't care? In June the New York Assembly is suspended by Parliament for refusing to quarter troops; New York protests but caves in; Charles Townshend sets up a Board of Customs Commissioners in Boston to stop smuggling, and reorganizes the vice-admiralty courts, placing new ones in Halifax, Boston, Philly, and Charleston; he then becomes remembered for good timing as he dies in Sept.? On Aug. 28-Oct. 2 Benjamin Franklin visits Paris, meets Horace Walpole on Sept. 13, and is presented to Louis XV and Marie Antoinette at Versailles for a grand couvert (public supper) at Versailles - pass the cake? On Oct. 1 the Maryland Gazette announces the arrival of the slave ship Lord Ligonier from the River Gambia. On Oct. 18 the Mason-Dixon line is adopted for the border between Penn. and Md. In the fall wealthy Philly farmer-lawyer John Dickinson (1732-1808) pub. a series of twelve Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, denouncing the Townshend Acts as "unconstitutional" because Parliament has no right to levy taxes for revenue, whether internal or external. In Oct. Ben Franklin's daughter Sarah Franklin (1743-1808) marries English-born merchant Richard Bache (1737-1811) in Philly, who becomes Franklin's successor as postmaster gen. during the Am. Rev. War in 1776-82. Talk about bad timing? When another tax proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is rejected by the House of Commons, PM Pitt suffers a complete nervous breakdown and retires to the country, leaving the cabinet headless, and Plodding ToryFrederick, Lord North (1732-92) is appointed chancellor of the exchequer to replace Townshend. Boston atty. Josiah Quincy II (1744-75) writes two articles for the Boston Gazette, signed by "Hyperion", followed by another next Sept., complaining about British oppression. By this time sexuality is so free in the turkey-pluckin' Am. backcountry that 94% of brides are pregnant on their wedding day.

In 1768 Charles Townshend's reorg. of the customs service causes a great increase in the collections, usually by force, which go from £2K annually in 1760-1768 to £30K annually in 1769-1774 - like putting a red flag in front of a bull? On Feb. 11 Samuel Adams and James Otis Jr. write the Mass. Circular Letter, and get the Mass. assembly to send it to the other colonies, calling for them to unite in opposition to the Townshend Acts, and again complaining about "taxation without representation"; by Apr. Mass., Va., Conn., N.J. and N.H. endorse it; from London Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough and 1st Marquess of Downshire (1718-93), newly appointed to the new office of secy. of state for the colonies (1768-72) demands the assembly to rescind the letter; when they refuse, the assembly is dissolved. In May the new Board of Customs Commissioners in Boston seizes John Hancock's sloop Liberty on a technicality, but a mob prevents them from unloading their loot, and they tow it to Castle William in the harbor and call for British troops to protect them - the point of no return? In Aug. Benjamin Franklin tries unsuccessfully to get appointed undersecy. to Lord Hillsborough, which dashes his last hopes of retaining union of the colonies with Britain, and causes him to begin pub. pamphlets against the Townshend Acts - if you can't join 'em? The gloves come off? In Sept. two regiments of redcoat storm troopers arrive in Boston, and the same day a convention of delegates from Mass. towns declares their "aversion to an unnecessary Standing Army, which they look upon as dangerous to their Civil Liberty"; Parliament responds by appointing a special commission in England to haul Americans suspected of treason before under an old act passed during the reign of Henry VIII. Meanwhile, England is distracted by George III and the "King's Friends"? In Oct. Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735-1811), who had acted as head of the cabinet in the ailing Pitt's absence becomes British PM after Pitt resigns; his weak leadership gives the king personal influence, leading to policies Pitt doesn't like but can no longer do anything about. The British chief royal agents for Indian affairs negotiate the Ft. Stanwix and Hard Labor Treaties, by which the Iroquois cede all lands E and S of the Ohio River; too bad, the Shawnees, Delaware and Mingos, who claim the region as their hunting grounds don't accept it. Bread is too expensive in France and England, and there are more bread riots in London. John Wilkes returns from France, and is reelected to the House of Commons from Middlesex, but is sent to prison to serve his 1764 sentence; the election is accompanied by mob vilence, and a large popular demonstration is staged in front of Parliament when it opens, causing troops to kill several protesters; Wilkes accuses the cabinet of planning a massacre, which turns them against him, and they expel Wilkes from the house; a new election returns Wilkes again, and he is expelled again; this goes on for two more rounds, and finally the Commons gives Wilkes' opponent his seat; the Parliament is now widely regarded as corrupt and under the mad king's thumb; meanwhile the king secretly awards the governorship of Va. (1768-7) to his impoverished favorite Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt (1718-70), having Lord Hillsborough inform Gen. Amherst he must return to Va. personally to keep it, causing him to resign as col. of the Royal Americans and the 15th Regiment, and decline an annuity proferred in lieu of a peerage, which causes a public uproar in London for "shabby treatment", and Pitt to argue on his behalf in front of the king, resulting in a promise that he will be the first new peer created, and granting him another pension as col. of the 3rd Regiment plus 20K acres in New York State; it takes until 1772 for him to make Amherst Lt. Gen. of the Ordnance, and until 1776 to make him a baron, while he grows fat and plants fruit and nut trees in his gardens in Kent? Members of the Am. Patriot Party (rebels) begin calling themselves Whigs to identify with the British Radical and Patriot Whigs; the royalists adopt the label of Tories; when the Am. Rev. ends, both terms fall into disuse. The "Queen City" of Charlotte, N.C., named after George III's wife is incorporated. Hudson's Bay Co. finally establishes that there is no Northwest Passage to the Orient. Members of the Am. Patriot Party (rebels) begin calling themselves Whigs to identify with the British Radical and Patriot Whigs; the royalists adopt the label of Tories; when the Am. Rev. ends, both terms fall into disuse. The secret Brothers in Unity society is founded at Yale U., becoming rivals with the Linonian Society (founded 1753). Mankind divides into two classes, the natural-born lovers and the natural-born haters of Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), claims Nation mag. Between this year and 1775 George Washington entertains 2K guests at his 8K-acre Mount Vernon, Va. plantation with a Mansion House having a 2-story pillared veranda and a downstairs bedroom.

On Jan. 10, 1769 after getting concerned about Russian incursions along the Pacific coast from their base in Alaska, Spanish minister Jose de Galvez (José de Gálvez) y Gallardo, Marqués de Sonora(1720-87) sends the dual land-sea Portola (Portolá ) Expedition, led by Gaspar de Portola (Portolà) i Rovira (1716-86) to explore and settle Alta Calif. with a system of presidios (military forts) and Franciscan missions, starting with the San Carlos sailing from La Paz, followed on Feb. 15 by the San Antonio sailing from Cabo San Lucas, while the land epedition leaves Velicata on Mar. 25; on July 16 Franciscan Father Miguel Jose "Junipero" Serra y Ferrer (1713-84) ("Apostle of Calif.") founds the first of 21 Catholic missions in Calif. at Mission San Diego de Alcala (Alcalá), becoming the start of El Camino Real (the Royal Road), which becomes an Indian Roman Catholic conversion factory as well as an agricultural estate; the super climate produces early crops of grapes, oranges and olives; over the next 50 years the Franciscans build 20 more missions spaced a day's journey apart along the coast all the way to San Francisco. The Am. Rev. really starts with fifth column propaganda in England? On Jan. 21, 1769 the anon. Letters of Junius begin to be pub. in the Public Advertiser in London (until Jan. 21, 1772), attacking corruption in public men, warning of the dangers of arbitrary power, and praising the virtues of a shorter term for Parliament; they are addressed to Sir William Draper, the Duke of Grafton, the Duke of Bedford et al.; in 1812 John Taylor claims that the real Junius is Sir Philip Francis, and in 1872 Joel Moody claims that he is Thomas Paine; it's really Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), who is also in London at the time?; the printers and publishers are tried for seditious libel, found guilty, then cleared after a 2nd trial, making them more popular, and in 1772 all 69 letters are reprinted by the Public Advertiser of London, owned by Henry Sampson Woodfall (1739-1805); "The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman"; "The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted"; "One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine"; "We owe it to our ancestors to preserve entire those rights, which they have delivered to our care: we owe it to our posterity, not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed"; "I believe there is yet a spirit of resistance in this country, which will not submit to be oppressed; but I am sure there is a fund of good sense in this country, which cannot be deceived"; "[Americans] equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop"; "There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves." On Jan. 27 Capt. James Cook rounds the Horn, reaches Tahiti on Apr. 13, on June 3 observes the rare Transit of Venus, then on Oct. 7 discovers New Zealand, sailing around North and South Islands, then the E coast of Australia; David Rittenhouse of Penn., one of the first people to construct a telescope in the U.S. observes the transit using a natural spider webbing reticle and records its atmosphere after first fainting from the excitement. In Apr. Wild Goose (Irish expatriate) Alejandro O'Reilly (1722-94) is appointed Spanish gov. of La. #2 (until Dec. 1), sailing to Havana with 2K mainly free black troops, arriving in New Orleans in Aug. and quashing the Creole uprising of 1768, establishing Spanish govt. control (dependent on Havana), having six rebels executed in Oct., earning him the name "Bloody O'Reilly"; he goes on to forbid the enslavement of Indians, allow slaves to buy their freedom, and make it easier for masters to manumit slaves before handing over the job on Dec. 1 to his asst. Luis de Unzaga y Amezaga (1721-90) (pr. "oon-THAH-gah") becomes Spanish gov. #3 of La. (until 1777), becoming known for opening trade and helping the Am. Rev. rebels out in 1776 with gunpowder; a Map of West Fla. and La. is pub. by Thomas Jefferys. In May a decision is made by the privy council in London to retain the hated Am. tea duty. In mid-May the V. assembly passes resolves reasserting its exclusive right to tax Virginians, challenging the constitutionality of hauling Americans across the ocean for trial, and calling upon the colonies to unite in their cause; the Virginia gov. then dissolves the assembly, only letting the members meet independently as a convention after the example of Boston; most other colonial assemblies follow suit. Daniel Boone was a man, yes a bi-i-i-ig man? On June 7 Berks County, Penn.-born frontiersman-explorer Daniel Boone (1734-1820), who has explored the area since 1767 with six companions, incl. French-Indian War buddy John Finley (Findley) (1759-1846) settles the "Dark and Bloody Ground" (called that by Cherokee chief Dragging Canoe, referring to the endless battles between his tribe and the Creeks, Shawnee, Wyandot, and Chickasaw along the Cumberland River) of Kentucky (Iroquois "Ken-tah-ten" = land of tomorrow) (central plain?), founding the town of Boonesboro in E Ky.; after being captured with his entire party by Indians in Dec., then escaping and joining up with his brother, then building the first cabin, living there during the winter; he later feels compelled to move to a new territory every time someone moves within a mile of him? On Aug. 9 lt. gov. (since 1758) Thomas Hutchinson (1711-80) becomes acting gov. of the Province of Mass. Bay (until Mar. 14, 1771, then gov. until May 17, 1774). In Sept. the first piano is built in the U.S.; it has a 3-4 octave range. On Dec. 13 Congregationalist minister Elazar Wheelock (1711-79) obtains a charter from George III for Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. as an outgrowth of a school for Indians founded in 1754, becoming the northernmost Ivy League college, and later producing alumnus Daniel Webster. On Dec. 15 bowing to the pressures of the Quartering Act, the New York Assembly votes to provide £2K to provide food and shelter to British troops stationed there; on Dec. 16 Alexander McDougall (1731-86) pub. the pamphlet To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York under the alias "A Son of Liberty". The Va. Assembly is dissolved after protesting against colonial treason trials held in Westminster. Elections for Parliament finally produce a majority for the King's Friends. Conn.-born Capt. (later Col.) John Butler (1728-94) uses his influence among pro-British Indians to defend Niagara, and is promoted to lead Russian troops occupy Moldavia and enter Bucharest. Settlers from SW Va. and N.C. ignore the Proclamation Line and squat on the Watauga River; more settlers squat in modern-day Tennessee in defiance of George III. Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa (b. 1720) is murdered at Cahokia, Ill. Mass. assembly leader James Otis Jr. is assaulted by a customs collector pissed-off at his agitation, and the injuries are so severe that he is forced to withdraw from public life, going insane at intervals. The S.C. assembly sets up six circuit courts to deal with horse thieves, cattle rustlers and Indians, and revises the fees, but refuses to respond to backcountry demands for representation; it also votes £1.5K for the radical Bill of Rights Society in England to pay the debts of govt. martyr John Wilkes, causing the king's ministers to step in and order the royal gov. and council to put the screws on the assembly; by 1771 it is virtually shut down. The Old Colony Club is formed in Plymouth, Mass. to celebrate Forefather's Day (Dec. 22), when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock; too bad that when the Am. Rev. start, most of the members are loyalists, and disband it. The word "patronage" is coined. The Liberty Rifle Works at Springfield is chartered by the Mass. legislature. Mark Anthony DeWolf of R.I. founds America's biggest slave-trading dynasty (until 1820). Thomas Jefferson begins construction of Monticello (It. "little mountain") in Va., SE of Charlottsville; it has three stories, 33 rooms, and an octagonal dome roof. Benjamin Franklin charts the Gulf Stream using info. from whaler captains and bottles dropped into the water with notes asking finders to return them to the postmaster general of the American colonies.

Country	Leader	From	To
Britain	George III (1738-1820)	Oct. 25, 1760	Jan. 29, 1820
France	Louis XV the Well-Beloved (1710-74)	Sept. 1, 1715	May 10, 1774
Spain	Charles III (1716-88)	Aug. 10, 1759	Dec. 14, 1788
Austria	HRE Joseph II (1741-90)	1765	Feb. 20, 1790
Russia	Catherine II the Great (1729-96)	July 9, 1762	Nov. 17, 1796
Prussia	Frederick II the Great (1712-86)	May 31, 1740	Aug. 17, 1786
Sweden	Adolf Frederik (1710-71)	Mar. 25, 1751	Feb. 12, 1771
Poland-Lithuania	Stanislaus II August Poniatowski (1732-98)	Nov. 25, 1764	Nov. 22, 1795
Papacy	Pope Clement XIV (1705-74)	May 18, 1769	Sept. 22, 1774
Turkey	Mustafa III (1717-74)	Oct. 30, 1757	Jan. 21, 1774

In 1770 the pop. of the Am. colonies is 2.5M, while the pop. of England is 7.5M, a ratio of 3 to 1; in 1700 the ratio was 20 to 1. The number of poor receiving public assistance in New York City rises to 5K from 250 in 1698. In the 1770s the Industrial Rev. begins in England, powered by steam. In the 1770s Britain goes from exporting more grain than it imports to an equal balance, going to a negative balance by 1790.

On Jan. 19, 1770 the Battle of Golden Hill, N.Y. between British soldiers and the Sons of Liberty in New York City results in the arrest of leader Alexander McDougall (1731-86) on Feb. 8. On Jan. 21, 1770 after not-yet-mad king (since 1760) George III (1738-1820) dismisses his coalition cabinet, the duke of Grafton resigns, and his Tory cousin Frederick, Lord North (1732-92) becomes British PM (until 1779), presiding over a cabinet of the King's Friends, where he becomes known for acquiescing in the king's views although he venerates the traditions of Parliament (worst British PM ever?); the king calls him his "sheet anchor"; the Tories, opposed to increasing the number of people who can vote, and famous for "rotten Boroughs" become the dominant force in the British House of Commons for the next 60 years; George III temporarily overthrows the system of cabinet govt. which had been established in the reign of his predecessor, just in time to bumble away America, causing Lord North to become known as "the minister who lost America". In Jan. 1770 Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) pub. A Parable Humbly Inscribed to His Nemesis Lord Hillsborough, about a large English dog who picks on a lion cub, only to be smashed with "a stunning blow" when the lion grows up, leaving the dog "regretting that he had not rather secured its friendship than provoked its enmity. On Feb. 12, 1770 Boston atty. Josiah Quincy II (1744-75) ("Hyperion") pub. a letter in the Boston Gazette containing the soundbyte: "To break off all social intercourse with those whom commerce contaminates, whose luxuries poison, whose avarice is insatiable, and whose unnatural oppressions are not to be borne." On Mar. 5, 1770 (Mon.) after a young apprentice insults redcoat "lobster back" sentry Pvt. Hugh White guarding the customs house, a fight breaks out, snowballs and rocks fly, the sentry calls for reinforcements, a firebell rings, and a Boston mob comes out in force; "Fire and be damned" the crowd taunts, hitting nine soldiers with missiles and knocking one down; after he rises to his feet, he fires into the crowd, and the other British soldiers respond, killing three and wounding eight, of whom two later die; the Boston Massacre (Incident on King Street) fans the fires of public support for rebellion; mulatto runaway-slave-turned-sailor Crispus Attucks (b. 1723) is the first killed, and as he is black he later becomes a superstar; on Mar. 13 nine soldiers and their commanding officer Capt. Thomas Preston are indicted for murder, and defended by John Adams (1735-1826) and Josiah Quincy II (Jr.); after the Boston Massacre Trial, on Dec. 5 Pvt. Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy (killer of Attucks) are convicted of manslaughter and branded on their right thumbs; Preston is acquitted next Mar. 6, and is spotted by John Adams in London in the 1780s; Adams later writes "The part I took in defence of Capt. Preston and the soldiers... was one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country. Judgment of death against those soldiers would have been a foul... stain upon this country"; Mass. acting gov. (since Aug. 2, 1769) Thomas Hutchinson (1711-80) is virtually forced by the Yankee rebels, led by firebrand Samuel Adams (1722-1803) (2nd cousin of John Adams) to order the removal of British troops from Boston, which he does after threatening high treason charges against anybody attacking them, saying "The loss we have sustained is greater than we can bear"; for drawing the line and showing how loyal he is (and saving British face?), Hutchinson becomes royal gov. of the Mass. colony in Nov. (until 1774). In Mar. 1770 by a cabinet vote of 5-4 Britain repeals all of the Townshend Acts except the Tea Tax in a pointed effort to maintain the principle that Parliament can tax the *!?! colonists if it bloody well wants; the news arrives in late Apr., and since most of the their tea is smuggled in from Holland, the non-importation movement in the colonies dies; emotions simmer down for the next two years, but most of the Grenville-Townshend laws remain in effect, and the British navy still patrols the coast, and there are occasional incidents. On Oct. 18 1770 the Treaty of Lochaber is signed in S.C., moving the Proclamation Line below the Ohio River further W; Benjamin Franklin and a number of British investors form a syndicate to establish the colony of Vandalia (colony) S of the Ohio River in present-day W. Va. and E Ky., but the Am. Rev. War causes the plans to be dropped. Maria Theresa appoints a commission to reform school education in Austria, led by Franz Friedrich Wilhelm von Furstenberg (1729-1810), who concentrates on getting rid of pesky Freethinkers, replacing them by Jesuit-approved teachers. In 1770 the anti-British newspaper Mass. Spy is founded in Boston, Mass. by Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831), who helps Paul Revere in his midnight ride in 1775. By 1770 the town of Pittsburgh, Penn. (founded 1758) has 20 log houses, and a small village flourishes on the site of Wheeling, W. Va. on the Ohio River, founded during the winter of 1769-70 by Col. Ebenezer Zane (1747-1811) and his brothers, who erect Ft. Fincastle in 1774, renaming it Ft. Henry in 1776 in honor of Patrick Henry. In the 1770s decade the sodomy-friendly Macaroni (Maccaroni) Craze sweeps London, named after the Italian dish brought back by the idle fops making their Grand Tour during the 1760s, after which "The word Macaroni then changed its meaning to that of a person who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion; and is now justly used as a term of reproach to all ranks of people, indifferently, who fall into this absurdity" (The Macaroni and Theatrical Mag.); macaronis like to wear fine sprigged fabric, tight clothes, oversized sword, tasseled walking stick, delicate shoes, and an enormous wig with tall front and a fat queue or club of hair behind, with a ridiculous litle hat that is so high up that it has to be removed at sword point, becoming the source of the allusion in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" to "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni".

In Jan. 1771 Benjamin Franklin calls on his old friend Lord Hillsborough to present his new credentials as Mass. agent to London, but the latter refuses to recognize them, and Franklin splits, with the parting shot, "I have not the least conception that an agent at present can be of any use to the colonies." The opening salvo of the Am. Rev.? On May 16, 1771 N.C. gov. (since 1765) William Tryon (1729-88) leads 1.2K militiamen into the Piedmont to battle 2K Regulators in the Battle of Alamance, which kills eight on each side; one Regulator is executed on the battlefield, twelve more convicted of treason and six hanged; Tryon's men force 6.5K Piedmont settlers in the backcountry to sign an oath of allegiance; later N.C. troops stand fast in an Am. Rev. battle, they gain the nickname Tarheels from Gen. Henry Lee. On July 14 Father Junipero Serra founds the San Antonio de Padua Mission in Calif. (#3), followed on Sept. 8 by the San Gabriel Arcangel Mission ("Godfather of the Pueblo of Los Angeles") (#4). On Oct. 27 English-born Methodist Episcopal Church bishop Francis Asbury (1745-1816) lands in Philadelphia, Penn. to organize the grand total of 316 Methodists in the Am. colonies; during the Am. Rev. War he is imprisoned for two years on suspicion of royalist loyalties; by the end of the war the church has 14K members and 83 ministers. Also in 1771 Scottish-born John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809), member of the British House of Lords in 1761-70, and gov. of New York in 1770 becomes British gov. of Va. (until 1776) - just in time to become the royal arse who done more dumb things than any before him?

In Mar. 1772 England sends the armed revenue cutter Gaspee (Gaspée) to blockade Rhode Island ports and patrol for smugglers, only to run aground near Providence; on June 9 the Hannah, commanded by Capt. Lindsey leaves Newport, and on June 10 sinks it with the assistance of townsmen from Providence (Narragansett Bay), who remove its crew and set fire to it ("America's first blow for freedom"); Britain responds by setting up a Gaspee Commission which bypasses the Rhode Island courts. In Apr. the Pine Tree Riot in New Hampshire results when a man is fined for cutting royal pines without a license. In Apr. 1772 Benjamin Franklin gets even with his nemesis Lord Hillborough when the latter's Grand Ohio Co., backed by Thomas and Richard Walpole forces his resignation after its land application is rejected. The Abe Lincoln of England; if it were only that easy in America? On May 14 after African slave James Somersett (Somerset) travels with his massah Charles Stuart of Va. to England in 1769, and his case is seized on by cool take-on-the-establishment English abolitionist Granville Sharp (1735-1813), who had lost a similar case in 1767 over mistreated slave Jonathan Strong, Scottish-born judge William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705-93) of the Court of King's High Bench rules in the Somersett Case that there is no legal basis for slavery in England, and that a slaveowner bringing a slave into England even temporarily grants him/her their freedom; slavery is eliminated in England on June 22 - erin go bragh? In May 1772 the frontier Watauga Compact (Assoc.) makes the Watauga colony in N.C. (Tenn.) (Southwest Territory) virtually a separate repub., and the first constitutional govt. W of the Appalachians; the first Am. Declaration of Independence? On June 13, 1772 Mass. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson tells the Mass. assembly that his salary would henceforth come out of customs revenues, along with the salaries of Superior Court judges; the assembly calls this "a despotic administration of government", and threatens secession. On June 30, 1772 Samuel Hearne returns to Ft. Prince of Wales on the mouth of the Churchill River on Hudson Bay, becoming the first Euro to visit the Arctic and return to tell about it. In June England crosses another line by seeming to bypass colonial govt. and treat the Am. colonies as occupied enemy territories? In June 1772 Mass gov. Thomas Hutchinson announces that the crown will begin paying judicial salaries instead of the Mass. legislature, and draw the money from customs revenues, causing Cambridge, Mass. to protest the practice as a violation of ancient liberties and practices, and Gen. William Brattle Jr. (1702-76) of Boston tells the meeting that the fact that they are appointed for life will ensure their independence of the crown, causing John Adams to pub. seven essays showing that the tenure of colonial judges, unlike English ones is dependent on the pleasure of the Crown; when the British forces abandon Boston in 1776 Brattle flees to Nova Scotia and kicks the bucket. On Sept. 26 the New Jersey Legislature forbids practicing medicine without a license. In Nov. dissatisfaction with English tax policies helps Samuel Adams (1722-1803) to convince the Boston town meeting at the home of surgeon John Warren (1753-1815) and his brainy wife Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) (brother of "taxation without representation is tyranny" atty. James Otis Jr. (1725-83)) to form a Committee of Correspondence, with physician Joseph Warren (1741-75) (John's brother) as chmn., causing others to form throughout the colonies, after which Mercy writes "No single step contributed so much to cement the union of the colonies", going on to become "the Conscience of the Am. Rev.", dissing the stankin' English and Loyalists and corresponding with Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, and English historian Catharine Macaulay, to whom she writes the soundbyte "America stands armed with resolution and virtue. She still recoils at the idea of drawing the sword against the nation from whence she derived her origin. Yet Britain, like an unnatural parent, is ready to plunge her dagger into the bosom of her affectionate offspring"; she also corresponds with men, incl. John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. On Nov. 20 Samuel Adams anon. pub. The Rights of the Colonists, declaring that all colonists have the right to life, liberty, and property; Va. gov. Lord Dunmore dissolves the Va. House of Burgesses this year, and again in 1773; "In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practised, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind. And it is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that Mr. Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live." Also in 1772 British squatters begin to appear on Oklahoma land in large numbers.

On Jan. 12, 1773 the first public museum in America is established in Charleston, S.C. In Mar. the Va. Assembly proposes the formation of an intercolonial network of Committees of Correspondence, which are called by a loyalist in Mass. "the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued from the egg of sedition" - welcome to the Twitter-Facebook American Spring? Lipton Broken sleeps with the fishes? On Apr. 27 Parliament (put up to it by Lord North to help his friends) passes the Tea Act (British East India Co. Regulating Act) to save the British East India Co., which is on the verge of bankruptcy but has 17M pounds of surplus tea in British warehouses; it dumps tea on the Am. colonies by refunding the British duty of twelve pence a pound, leaving only the three pence duty to collect at the colonial port; although this makes English tea cheaper than Dutch black market tea, it also lets the EIC bypass the existing wholesalers and establish a monopoly which cuts out the colonials; the outraged colonists force the tea back in New York City and Philly, cause it to be mothballed in warehouses in Charleston, S.C. (later used to finance the Revolution), but face determined opposition in Boston, where two of Gov. Hutchinson's sons are among the consignees. On July 25 the Boston and Maine Railroad, the first major line in British North Am. is completed. In Sept. Daniel Boone (1734-1820) returns to Ky. (Kentucky County, Va.), with several settler families (50 people); on Oct. 9 after his son James Boone and several others leave camp for supplies, a band of Delawares, Shawnees, and Cherokees attack them, capture James Boone and another boy, and gruesomely torture them to death, causing the whole party to turn back. On Nov. 30 the Boston town meeting in Old South Church warns officials not to assist the landing of the hated tea ships, but to wait until Dec. 16, when it would be legal to seize the cargo after 20 days in port; either way the ships cannot legally leave the harbor without discharging their cargo. The political protest that turns Americans into coffee drinkers? On Dec. 16 (Thur.) at 4 p.m. about 50 colonials and members of the Committee of Correspondence meet at the home of Boston Gazette ed. Benjamin Edes (1732-1803), who serves them from an ever-full China rum punchbowl (replentished by his son Peter) (later given to the Mass. Historical Society); about 6 p.m. Samuel Adams says "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country", and the drunken bums, er, patriots leave to get more drunk at the Green Dragon Tavern on Union St. in North End, Boston (founded 1743), home of the Freemason Lodge of St. Andrew, then dress up in Edes' office and stage the Boston Tea Party during the moonlit night, as a mob of 200 Am. colonists, incl. Samuel Adams (1722-1803), John Hancock (1737-93), Thomas Wells (a blacksmith), and Samuel Smith (1714-85) (grandfather of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith Jr.) (not really - just Mormon propaganda?) disguised as negroes and Mohawks with soot-darkened faces (the English taxes were based on a desire to make the Americans pay their expenses in the French and Indian War - get it?) gather at Griffin's Wharf, then board and dump three shiploads (342 chests) (45 tons) of tea valued at £18K into the S end of Boston Harbor (between modern-day Congress St., Atlantic Ave., and Northern Ave.), while another 2K-8K people urge them on from the docks; the ships they take over are the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver (dart eleanor beaver mouth jokes here?); the William was destroyed in a storm and didn't make it; four days later Paul Revere gallops into New York City with the news, and 18-y.-o. Charlestown, West Indies-born Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), a student at King's (later Columbia) College in New York pub. his first political piece in John Holt's New-York Journal, titled Defence and Destruction of the Tea; Boston merchants are not happy with the wanton destruction of property by the rebels, and Ben Franklin calls on Boston to pay for the tea and apologize to prevent the Brits from closing the port, but instead of trying to undermine the credibility of the radicals and defuse the situation, mad king George III writes to Lord North that "The colonists must either submit or triumph", and instructs him to discipline all of Boston. On Dec. 25 after Benjamin Franklin brings to the attention of the Mass. Assembly certain Letters by Royal Gov. Thomas Hutchinson in which he asks for "abridgment of what are called English liberties", it sends a petition to Parliament requesting Hutchinson's removal. In 1773 Am. colonial govts. begin purchasing large numbers of rifles. In 1773 Scottish merchant capt. John Paul (b. 1747) kills the leader of a mutinous crew in Tobago, then escapes prison before trial, returning to his adopted home of Fredericksburg, Va. and becoming a fugitive from British justice, causing him to take on the surname of Jones to hide his identity; thus is born John Paul Jones (1747-92). In 1773 Toronto ("meeting place"), Canada (modern pop. 640K/2.8M) is founded as a British garrison. In 1773 the first shipment of ginseng from Boston to China begins, starting a shipping boom. In 1773 Samuel Enderby (1717-97) a whaling co. called Southern Fishery, which becomes Samuel Enderby & Sons in 1775 when an embargo is placed on whale oil exports from New England due to the Am. Rev. War. In 1773 the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Penn. is founded. In 1773 James Rivington founds the New-York Gazeteer at the foot of Wall Street, becoming the rival to the New York Journal.

In 1773 freed black slave Phyllis Wheatley (1753-84) pub. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral after a visit to England, becoming the first book pub. by an African-Am., throwing a tire iron into the whites' "inherent Negro inferiority" window?; "Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,/ Taught my benighted soul to understand/ That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too;/ Once I redemption neither sought nor knew./ Some view our sable race with scornful eye,/ 'Their colour is a diabolic die.'/ Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,/ May be refin'd and join th'angelic train"; in 1776 she pub. To His Excellency General Washington (42 lines) in the Penn. Mag., celebrating Washington's appointment as head of the Continental army; "Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,/ Thy ev'ry action let the goddess guide./ A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,/ With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine"; she also pub. To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, comparing the desire of the Am. colonies for independence with her own desire to be free; too bad, after returning to Am., she marries freed black John Peters, and her fame fades.

On Jan. 25, 1774 John Malcolm, comptroller for the customs service in Boston, Mass. is attacked by Am. revolutionaries and beaten, tied to a Liberty Tree, and tarred and feathered, with the pine tar applied so hot that his skin strips off his back, after which Malcolm sailes back to London with samples for display. On Jan. 29, 1774 Ben Franklin (1706-90), Mass. agent to the British govt. (dressed in blue spotted Manchester velvet) is excoriated in Parliament's Privy Council (meeting in the Cockpit) by Scottish barrister Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn (1733-1805) for his role in pub. some purloined letters damaging to Mass. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson; the Mass. petition against Hutchinson is denied; the next day Franklin is removed from his job as Am. postmaster, and he lies low in England for the rest of the year. On Apr. 27, 1774 the Battle of Pipe Creek between white British settlers in Ky. and the Shawnee tribe of the Ohio sees a few wounded on both sides, but escalates the tensions, and on Apr. 30 some Mingo Indians, still at peace with the whites go to Baker's Tavern on the W bank of the Ohio River at Yellow Creek for their usual rum, and take a small white child with them, pissing off the settlers, who get them drunk and then massacre them to rescue the child, causing Mingo chief Logan to declare war on the palefaces and quit acting as the buffer between them and the Shawnee, and begin pillaging frontier settlements on the W side of the Monongahela River; causing Va. gov. Lord Dunmore to launch Lord Dunmore's War (ends Oct. 1774), calling on the House of Burgesses to send an elite volunteer militia force to kick Shawnee and Mingo butt S of the Ohio River. In Apr. 1774 the outraged British Parliament passes the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts in reaction to the Boston Tea Party; civil liberties are suspended; on Mar. 31 the Boston Port Bill orders the port of Boston closed on June 1; on May 12 after Observations on the Boston Port Bill by Josiah Quincy appears, clearly indicating war as the only option with independence the goal, the British colonists vote to renew their non-importation policies; on May 13 Thomas Hutchinson is replaced as military gov. of Mass. by Gen. Thomas Gage (1719-87), and returns to England; Gage brings four British regiments with him to keep the peace. On Apr. 22, 1774 a group of sea captains led by Alexander McDougall dress up as Mohawks and storm the British ship HMS London in New York harbor to stage a copycat tea party. On May 10, 1774 Louis XV the Well-Beloved (b. 1710) (of his many mistresses?) dies of smallpox (a coverup for syphilis, or murder by the Jesuits?), as signalled by a candle in his window being snuffed out; after he and his bubble-headed Austrian wife Marie Antoinette cry it out, on June 11 Louis XV's peasant-faced oldest (20-y.-o.) grandson Louis XVI (1754-93) is crowned as Bourbon king #5 of France; he is ordinary but well-meaning, an amateur locksmith and excellent shot, but lets himself be ruled by kinda-beautiful sexy wifey Marie Antoinette (1755-93) and by his brothers the Count of Artois and the Count of Provence, letting the country go to hell in a handbasket while she enjoys a no-limit credit card and mounts up big gambling debts at backgammon, stays up all night while he sleeps, and plays with pretty boys in what is thought a shocking manner, even though she is probably faithful to him; during his reign the female hairstyle grows even more extravagant, Antoinette wearing a 3-foot tower, and reaching the ultimate of the Coiffure a la Fregate (l'Independance) (le Triomphe de la Liberte), complete with a model ship on top right before the French Rev.; Louis XVI banishes Louis XV's mistress Comtesse du Barry from court, and she lives in her chateau at Luciennes, fleeing to England when the French Rev. begins; how could he know that the July 4 Am. Rev. will end up getting him executed before he reaches 40? On May 23 the Chestertown Tea Party on the Chester River in Md. is a copycat of the Boston Tea Party. On June 22 the Quebec Act is passed, allowing for Roman Catholics to hold office, reestablishing old boundaries of Canada, extending Quebec's boundaries S to the Ohio River, and imposing Roman-based French civil law; this angers Americans who fear that priest-ridden Catholicism is being "established" there. On July 6 the Sons of Liberty holds a mass meeting near the grassy Common (the Fields) near King's College in Manhattan, in the shadow of an 80-ft. pole with the word LIBERTY on its gilded weather vane; 19-y.-o. Alexander Hamilton gives a spontaneous speech which causes him to become a youthful hero? In the summer the New York Provincial Congress declares that anyone aiding the British enemy is to be disarmed, imprisoned or exiled. On July 11 the Klock Incident shows the way the Mohawks are being cheated of their lands by the stinking British settlers. On July 21 the Sixth Russo-Turkish War (begun 1768) ends with a Russian V and the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji; Russian trading ships are now free to navigate in Turkish waters; Turkey is forced to promise lenient treatment of Moldavia and Wallachia, which is placed under Russian protection despite Turkish suzerainty since the year 1411. By late Aug. after Penn. assemblyman James Smith (1719-1806) proposes it, all of the colonies except Georgia have picked their delegates to the First Continental Congress, which convenes on Sept. 5 in Philadelphia in the red-black brick Carpenters' Hall; on Sept. 7 it starts its first session with a 3-hour prayer and Bible study, in which Psalm 35 ("Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me") is read, wowing Samuel Adams, who takes it as a divine omen that that that; Peyton Randolph (1723-75) of Williamsburg, Va. is unanimously elected pres.; William Bradford (1722-91) becomes the official printer; the delegates sit for 6 weeks in Windsor chairs after starting out by praying that war may be averted, then reaffirm their loyalty as British subjects; shortly after this King George III begs his famous retired (and backstabbed) Gen. Amherst to return to America as CIC with "an olive branch in one hand, while the other should be prepared to obtain submission", but Amherst replies that he would rather resign from the army? On Sept. 1 the Powder Alarm starts when Mass. Bay gov. Gen. Thomas Gage orders the removal of gunpowder from a magazine by British soldiers, after which rumors of bloodshed cause an alarm to spread through the countryside as far as Conn., causing thousands of militiamen to head for Boston and Cambridge, while mobs force loyalists and British officials to flee to the British army for protection until it's proved to be a false alarm, becoming a dress rehearsal for the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On Sept. 6 amid unfounded rumors that the British had burned Boston to the ground, 40K colonial militia are quickly mobilized, only to be disbanded when it is learned that the rumors are false; this freaks Gen. Thomas Gage, who commands the 3K British soldiers garrisoned in Boston to fortify the city with a full regiment supported by field guns. On Sept. 9 at Doty's Tavern in Suffolk County, Mass. the Suffolk Resolves, drafted by Dr. Joseph Warren are passed, and carried to Philadelphia by Paul Revere, who arrives on Sept. 16; on Sept. 17 the Continental Congress adopts them, becoming the point of no return?; Warren is a member of the first three provincial congresses of Mass. (1774-5), is pres. of the third, and also becomes a key member of the committee of public safety; too bad this budding U.S. pres. gets killed at Bunker Hill? On Sept. 22 anti-Jesuit Pope Clement XIV (b. 1705) dies - which Jesuit should we thank for that cup of Borgia? On Sept. 22 Tory Joseph Galloway (1729-1803) of Penn. places before the Continental Congress a moderate reaction to the Coercive Acts, calling upon the colonies to pursue a plan for reunion with England after a complete overhaul of govt. within the colonies; the new govt. would consist of a pres.-gen. appointed by the king and a grand council elected by the colonial assemblies; James Duane of N.Y. arouses violent opposition by supporting Galloway; the Pennsylvania Plan is defeated on Oct. 22 by a margin of one vote (6-5), and the revolution is on and revvin'. In Sept. Josiah Quincy sails to England as agent of the Patriot Party of Boston; he dies on the voyage home next year on Apr. 26. On Oct. 10 the Battle of Point Pleasant (Kanawha) (first battle of the Am. Rev.?) is a V for 1.1K troops of the Va. militia under Irish-born Col. Andrew Lewis (1720-81) defeat Ohio Confederate Indians under Shawnee Chief Cornstalk (Hokoleskwa) (1720-77), after which they agree to a peace, which the Mingos won't accept, after which a force of 240 under Maj. William Crawford (1732-82) (who used to do surveying work with George Washington) destroys the Mingo village of Salt Lick Town (Seekunk), causing them to accept it; the Indian chief agree to lose their hunting privileges and to recognize the Ohio River as the boundary; too bad, some tribesmen feel that their chiefs have sold them out, and after the Am. Rev. War starts they see their chance and begin attacking white colonists again. On Oct. 14 the Continental Congress votes to endorse the Declaration of Resolves, a document containing ten resolutions which set forth the rights of the colonies, denounce the Coercive Acts, and declare that the power to make and execute law and levy taxes within the colonies should be the right and privilege of those colonies; the idea that every citizen of the colonies should have the right to "life, liberty and property" without interference by Britain is contained in the document. On Oct. 20 the Creek War in Ga. (begun in Jan.) ends with a peace treaty. On Oct. 20 the Continental Congress puts teeth behind a total trade embargo and boycott of the mudda cuntry with a system of committees called the (Continental) Association to police the embargo with a network of local committees. On Oct. 26the Continental Congress approves the drafting of two letters, the first to be directed to Canada, requesting the Quebec Province to join the Americans in their stand of unity, the second, by "penman of the Am. Rev." John Dickinson (1732-1808) (richest farmer in Del.), a Declaration of Rights to the king; the Continental Congress adjourns on Oct. 26 after calling for a second Congress to meet next year on May 10 in Philadelphia - the ball's in your court, kingey? In Oct. the Provincial Congress orders the militias to reorganize as an Army of Observation to defend against sorties out of Boston by British regulars; each town is to place one quarter of its militia into minutemen companies. On Nov. 16 Alexander Hamilton duels wits with Am. Episcopal minister Rev. Samuel Seabury (1729-96) of Westchester, Conn. (signer of the 1775 White Plains Protest), who pub. a series of pro-Tory pamphlets this year signed by A.W. (A Westchester) Farmer, starting with Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress; Hamilton's The Farmer Refuted is pub. on Dec. 15, causing Seabury on Nov. 28 to pub. Congress Canvassed; or An Examination into the Conduct of the Delegates at Their Grand Convention, which Hamilton answers with A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress from the Calumnies of Their Enemies, causing Seabury on Dec. 24 to dig deep for his 3rd (greatest?) A View of the Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies in a Letter to the Author of a Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress. On Dec. 14-15, 1774 former Portsmouth, N.H. atty. Gen. John Sullivan (1740-95), warned by Paul Revere that the British plan to send soldiers to Portsmouth leads the first military action by colonial soldiers in opposition to the British, capturing Ft. William and Mary with 400 Minutemen; there are no casualties on either side - strike the Jack? In Dec. Boston loyalist laywer Daniel Leonard (1740-1829) begins pub. articles in the Boston Gazette under the alias "Massachusettensis" (until Apr. 1775), decrying the idea of turning America into a new Scotland that has no allegiance to the British crown, and pointing out that Am. will then have no benefit of the British constitution, and can end up as a dozen different warring states, causing John Adams to reply under the alias "Novanglus", admitting the Scotland thingie, but pointing out that Am. has 3M people and the British kingdom 12M, and that it doesn't get 25% of the MPs, hence Britain is imposing an oligarchy on it, and concluding with the soundbyte "We are a part of the British dominions, that is, of the King of Great Britain, and it is our interest and duty to continue so. It is equally our interest and duty to continue subject to the authority of parliament, in the regulation of our trade, as long as she shall leave us to govern our internal policy, and to give and grant our own money, and no longer"; too bad, before he sticks his foot in his mouth any further, Adams' last article is interrupted by the Battle of Lexington. In 1774 conflicts on the NW frontier of Va. erupt into full-scale battles which force the Shwanees to surrender their claims in dark and bloody Kentucky; N.C. judge Richard Henderson (1734-85) ("Political Father of Kentucky") buys a dubious title to the land between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, forms a plan for white settlement of the area, and organizes the Transylvania Co.; meanwhile, the first permanent settlement in Kentucky is established by James Harrod (1742-93), becoming the first region W of the Alleghenies settled by white Am. pioneers (bringing in all the baggage of Europe). Also in 1774 Rhode Island agrees to abolish slavery. In 1774 Charles James Fox (1749-1806), 3rd son of Baron Henry Fox, who resigned as junior lord of the admiralty in Lord North's ministry in 1772 in order to oppose the Royal Marriage Act, then is appointed junior lord of the treasury this year is dismissed after angering the king with his sympathy for the Am. colonists, and goes on to join the Whig opposition, becoming a brilliant orator and advocating granting the colonies their independence on friendly terms. Joseph Brant becomes secy. to Guy Johnson, supt. of Indian affairs. Also in 1774 hawk-nosed Thetford, Norfolk, England-born Freethinker-abolitionist Thomas "Tom" Paine (1737-1809) arrives in Philadelphia, Penn. with introductions from Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), and turns into the firebrand of the Am. Rev., churning out cool pamphlets that appeal to the masses.

1775 "Already, in 1775, the many disastrous circumstances of Irish history had driven great bodies of Irishmen to seek a home in America" (Lecky); do the cents. of oppression of the Irish and Scots catch up with the stankin' English in Am. and fuel the Am. Rev. with a critical mass of volunteers? On Jan. 17 Concord, Mass. musters its first co. of minutemen under Capt. Charles Miles, and its second on Jan. 30 under Capt. John Buttrick, who is later demoted to major. On Jan. 23 Alexander Hamilton's 80-page pamphlet The Farmer Refuted is pub. in New York City, crushing his opponent Rev. Samuel Seabury to the size of a vending machine peanut, predicting how rebel guerrilla tactics will ensure a V, and that France and Spain will come to the aid of the rebel colonies. On Feb. 15 after a long conclave, Cesena-born Giovanni Angelico (Angelo) (Gianangelo) Braschi (Brachi) is elected Pope (#250) Pius VI (1717-99), going on to live to see the disturbing (to a Catholic) Am. Rev., French Rev., and Napoleon - Pius VI in 76? On Feb. 21 Mass. colonists vote to buy military equipment for 15K men. On Mar. 19 Benjamin Franklin spends the afternoon with Whig MP Edmund Burke; on Mar. 22 Burke makes a Speech on Conciliation with America in the House of Commons urging the govt. to adopt a policy of reconciliation with America, with the soundbyte: "A great empire and little minds go ill together". On Mar. 23 Patrick Henry (1736-99) gives his Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Speech to the Va. Provincial Convention in Richmond, Va., with the soundbyte: "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death"; armed revolt is on the way - and give me the governor's job? On Mar. 30 the New England Restraining Act forbids trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland by Mass., N.H., Conn. and R.I.; on Apr. 13 Lord North extends it to S.C., Va., Penn., N.J., and Md. In Mar. Ben Franklin leaves for America, arriving on May 5; he and Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) form the first abolition society at sea on Apr. 14. In the spring dissolute champagne-and-mistress-loving British Maj. Gen. John "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne (1722-92), whose first play is winning critical acclaim in London is assigned to duty in Boston, Mass., where he becomes an observer at the Battle of Bunker Hill - there's a man who lives a life of danger, to every man he meets he stays a stranger? Daniel Boone was a man, yes a bi-i-i-g man? On Apr. 1 after Richard Henderson organizes a band of 30 expert woodsmen led by Daniel Boone to blaze the 200-mi. Wilderness Trail (Road) from the upper Holston River in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, over the Appalachians, and through Cumberland Gap in SW Va., they cross the Kentucky River, terminating at Boonesville, where they build the stockade Ft. Boonesborough and found the colony (proposed 14th U.S. state) of Transylvania, with Boone's wife Rebecca Bryan and daughter being among the first women settlers in Ky. On Apr. 14 the first anti-slavery society in Am. is founded in Philadelphia, Penn. by Thomas Paine et al. April showers of bullets bring May flowering patriots? The Am. Rev. begins? On Apr. 14 Mass. gov. Thomas Gage is secretly ordered by the British to enforce the Coercive Acts and suppress open rebellion by an iron hand; on Apr. 17 John Adams ridicules Gov. Hutchinson, calling him a man "of piddling genius"; on Apr. 18 Gage secretly orders 800 troops to Concord to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock and destroy the rebel weapons depot in Concord, but the rebels have spies, and the same day at 10 p.m. 18-y.-o. church sexton Robert Newman (1752-1804) hangs two lanterns ("one if by land, and two if by sea") in the 191-ft.-high steeple of the Anglican Old North Church (built 1723) (highest point in Boston) (most patriotic church in America, with a backbone of sea captain members who were hit hard by all the British shenanigans) to warn riders that the British are leaving Boston by boat to march on Concord, causing Paul Revere (1735-1818) to make his famous midnight ride on the borrowed horse Brown Beauty, shouting, "The British are coming!" after slipping by the 400-crew HMS Somerset (launched July 18, 1748) (which rescued British troops after the battles of Lexington and Concord, bombarded Bunker Hill, and sinks on Nov. 2, 1778 after being driven by a storm onto shallow sandy Peaked Hill); William Dawes Jr. (1745-99) also rides to Concord, but his role is later forgotten; "Listen my childen, and you shall hear/ of the midnight ride of Paul Revere/ on the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five;/ hardly a man is now alive/ who remembers that famous day and year" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), Paul Revere's Ride. On Apr. 19 (dawn) the Battle of Lexington Green and Concord Bridge begins with a volley on 77 armed farmers known as Mass. Minutemen on Lexington Green under Capt. John Parker (1729-75) trying to block the British advance guards under Maj. John Pitcairn (1722-75); Parker commands, "Stand your ground. Don't fire until fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here"; the volley leaves 8 colonists dead and 10 wounded, becoming "the shot heard around the world"; the British rout the colonials then destroy the weapons depot in Concord as ordered, although the Minutemen make a better stand on Concord Bridge; the first command to the colonials to fire on the British is given by Maj. John Buttrick (1731-91), who shouts "Fire fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire!"; on the way back to Boston the Brits are harassed all the way by snipers hiding behind walls and fences, and the town of Arlington, Mass. (6 mi. NW of Boston) (founded 1700) becomes the scene of a ' hand-to-hand battle between Minutemen and the retreating Brits; the British end up with a total of 273 casualties, the colonials 95; John Adams says, "The die was cast, the Rubicon passed"; 78-y-o. patriot Samuel Whittemore (1696-1793) becomes a hero when he single-handedly ambushes the British Grenadiers of the 47th Regiment, killing two and wounding one before being shot in the face, bayoneted 19x, and left for dead, after which fellow minutemen find him lying in a pool of blood trying to reload; he goes on to live another 18 years., dying on Feb. 2, 1793 1 mo. before U.S. pres. #1 George Washington is sworn-in for his 2nd term. On Apr. 23 the Provincial Congress in Mass. orders mobilization of soldiers, who encamp around British-held Boston and seige it. On Apr. 23 New York receives news of the Lexington-Concord battle and an insurrection overtakes the city; the City Hall is pilfered of 1K weapons, which are used to start volunteer militia companies; on Apr. 24 a crowd of 8K patriots mass in front of City Hall, and many Tories book quick trips to England; on May 10 hundreds of patriots try to tar and feather Tory King's College pres. Myles Cooper, but his pupil Alexander Hamilton helps him escape to England. In Apr. Lord Dunmore removes powder stores from Williamsburg, Va. to the British warship Magdalen, causing colonists under the leadership of Patrick Henry to organize an armed resistance. Washington worship achieves critical mass? On May 5 Ben Franklin arrives in Philly from Portsmouth, England as bells ring to celebrate his arrival; delegates are already gathering there for the Second Continental Congress, incl. plantation squire George Washington (1732-99), who is greeted by a thousand militiamen at Philly's outskirts; Franklin is selected a member of Congress on May 6; at 70 he is the oldest of the 63 members. On May 8 New England delegates to the Second Continental Congress are warmly welcomed as they pass through New York; on May 10 the Second Continental Congress meets in Philly, and reelects Peyton Randolph (b. 1723) as pres., but he dies, and they elect John Hancock (richest man in Boston) as pres., then authorize the colonies to adopt their own constitutions. On May 10 the Continental Congress in Philly issues Continental Money to finance the Am. Rev. War (until May 31, 1781), issuing $2M worth on June 22. On May 10 Ethan Allen (1738-89), joined by Col. Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) of Conn. lead the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont (founded 1764) in conquering Ft. Carrillon, AKA Ft. Ticonderoga in N.Y., obtaining needed military supplies for the siege of Boston, followed on May 12 by Crown Point (on the W shore of Lake Champlain in N.Y., 10 mi. N of Ft. Ticonderoga), paving the way for an invasion of Canada. On May 20 the Mecklenburg Declaration, the first battle cry for Am. independence is issued in Mecklenburg, N.C., and N.C. becomes the first colony to declare independence. On June 1 a riot occurs during a session of the Va. House of Burgesses after it resolves to observe the anniv. of the closing of the port of Boston as a day of public fasting, causing Lord Dunmore to dissolve it and transfer his seat of govt. to the British man-of-war Fowey 12 mi. off Yorktown; on June 24 the burgesses meet for the last time, declaring that he had abdicated, creating a committee of safety with executive powers; nonplussed, on Oct. 24-25 Dunmore unsuccessfully attacks Hampton, Va. with a flotilla. On June 7 the United Colonies change their name to the United States in Congress Assembled after the name is suggested by Oliver Ellsworth. On June 11-12 the Battle of Machias (the Margaretta), the first naval action of the Am. Rev. War sees the colonials capture the British sloop Margaretta off Machias on the Maine coast; on Oct. 17 the British Navy burns the town of Falmouth, Mass. (modern-day Portland, Maine). On June 14 the U.S. Army is created by the Continental Congress; on June 15 strapping, reticent 43-y.-o. Virginian (hardly a virgin) George Washington (1732-99), who carries himself with unusual poise and habitually wears a colonel's uniform is appointed maj. gen. and CIC by a unanimous vote after Md. rep. Thomas Johnson Jr. (1732-1819) (gov. of Md. in 1777-9) proposes him; with one-fifth of the pop., Va. gets its leadership role, and the South is placated for the first but hardly last time; on June 16 other senior army officers are authorized, and on June 22 after a long debate Congress decides to appoint four maj. gens. (each with 2 aides and 8 brig. gens.) under Big GW, incl. Artemas Ward (1727-1800) of Mass., Charles Lee (1732-82) of Va., Philip John Schuyler (1733-1804) of N.Y., and Israel Putnam (1718-90) of Conn.; half of Washington's army ends up being made up of Irish regiments; many brigades are formed from entire Presbyterian congregations, with the minister acting as col.; 33-y.-o. Nathanael Green (1742-78), a handsome Quaker from R.I. with a limp and no military experience becomes the youngest brig. gen. in the U.S. army (after Trenton), and ends up second only to Washington, and the latter's choice for CIC if he is captured or killed; Greene later says of his boss, "He will be the deliverer of his own country"; London-trained Philly atty. Joseph Reed (1741-85) becomes Washington's secy., and later becomes army adjutant gen. with the rank of col.; Washington spends the rest of the year trying to break his army's individualistic and dem. spirit, ending the election of officers by the men, introducing a military hierarchy with distinctive dress and gradations in pay, led by aristocratic Southern states and objected to by Mass.; Washington gets frequent advice and supplies from Conn. gov. (1769-84) Jonathan Trumbull Sr. (1710-85), whom he refers to as "Brother Jonathan", later using the term to refer to Congress after he becomes pres. in 1789; Bible-thumper Washington introduces floggings, and tries in vain to get Congress to authorize 500 lashes as the max instead of 39; "New lords, new laws... The strictest government is taking place, and great distinction is made between officer and soldiers. Everyone is made to know his place and keep it." On June 15 word reaches the Continental Congress of British plans to occupy the Charlestown peninsula. On June 17 after the rebels learn of British plans to reinforce Bunker (Bunker's) Hill (modern-day Suffolk County) N of Boston, and beat them to the punch under Lt. Col. John Robinson (1735-1805), reinforcing nearby Breed's Hill instead, the British assault them, resulting in the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill); the rebels are ordered by their ranking officer (cmdr. of Conn. forces since the Battle of Concord), pudgy-faced Maj. Gen. Israel "Old Put" Putnam (1718-90) not to fire until they can see "the whites of their eyes"; the Brits win when the rebels run out of gunpowder and have to retreat, but sustain 1K casualties (226 dead, 828 wounded) vs. 400 (140 dead, 301 wounded) for the rebels; Dr. Joseph Warren (b. 1741), who was appointed maj. gen. on June 14 and offered to fight as a private then insists on leading a charge is KIA in the battle after uttering the soundbyte: "These fellows say we won't fight! By Heavens, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood", becoming a martyr despite Gen. Gage claiming that his death is worth 500 rebels; former slave Salem Poor (1747-1802) kills British Lt. Col. James Abercrombie (b. 1732); freed slave Peter Salem (1750-1816) (Muslim?) kills British leader Maj. John Pitcairn (b. 1722), allowing the rebels to escape; Mass. pres. James Warren fights in the battle alongside his wife Mercy Otis Warren's brother James Otis Jr., then is appointed a gen. but refuses to serve in the Continental Army under officers of lesser rank, and ends up as Washington's paymaster; the song Yankee Doodle, originally used by the British to ridicule Yankee ineptitude is adopted as an "in your face" American marching song because of this battle? On June 25 Washington crosses the Hudson River on the Hoboken ferry, then stages a triumphant procession along Broadway in a carriage pulled by white horses, wearing a purple sash across his blue uniform and a big plume in his hatty hat hat - If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere? On July 3 George Washington takes command of the 17K-man Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass. under an old elm tree. On July 5 the Continental Congress sends the Olive Branch Petition directly to King George III, fishing for a reconciliation (Congress still has its wannabe loyalists who blame America's troubles on his "artful and cruel" ministers, not the king); Ben Franklin signs it even though he has made the decision to go rebel by now. On July 6 the Continental Congress issues a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson; "Our cause is just. Our union is perfect... being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves" - ahem, forgot about the darkies? On July 26 the Continental Congress creates the position of U.S. Postmaster Gen., bringing the U.S. Post Office into existence, with Benjamin Franklin as the first. On July 27 Benjamin Church III (1734-78), grandson of Am. frontiersman Benjmain Church becomes the first surgeon gen. of the U.S. Army; too bad, on Oct. 17 he is caught secretly abetting the British during the siege of Boston as a spy for Gen. Thomas Gage, and is imprisoned until 1777, when he sails to the West Indies in a schooner that disappears at sea. On Aug. 16 Edmund Pendleton (1721-1803) becomes pres. of the Va. Committee of Safety (until July 5, 1776), followed by pres. of the Va. Convention that authorizes the signing of the DOI, followed by first speaker of the Va. House, going on to work with Thomas Jefferson et al. to revise the Va. law code. On Aug. 23 in the biggest mistake in English kingly history, refusing to even look at it, not-yet-mad king George III appears before Parliament and issues a Proclamation of Rebellion against the Am. colonies, proclaiming them to have "proceeded to open and avowed rebellion", and calling for a "speedy end" to it, which finally causes Am. support for the rebellion to crystallize; overconfident kingy hires 29K German mercenaries to kick their rebel butts - hear hear, pip pip and all that rot? On Aug. 23 (Proclamation Day) Alexander Hamilton and 15 King's College volunteers move the heavy artillery of exposed Ft. George to the Common as the British warship Asia bombards them, blowing a big hole in the roof of Fraunces Tavern and sending thousands of panicky New Yorkers fleeing from their beds into the streets - and no FDNY to Rescue Me? In Aug. citizens of Bermuda sympathetic to the Am. rebel cause steal gunpowder, so alarming military gov. Bruere that he urgently requests that British troops be sent. On Sept. 17-Nov. 3 Am. Brig. Gen. Richard Montgomery (1738-75), serving under Gen. Philip Schuyler sieges St. John's (Jean) in Quebec, and brings about the surrender of 600 British troops after Col. Benedict Arnold leads the assault; on Nov. 13 Montgomery captures Montreal in Quebec. On Sept. 25 British troops capture Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga when he leads a handful of rebels in an attack on Montreal. The original Hannah and her sisters? On Oct. 13 the Continental Congress orders the construction of a naval fleet; the first ship constructed is the schooner Hannah (Heb. "grace"), commissioned by George Washington and outfitted at Beverly, Mass.; prosperous Boston merchant Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), an ally of Samuel Adams introduces and secures the passage of a bill to arm and equip ships to harass British maritime commerce. On Oct. 30 Father Junipero Sierra founds Mission San Juan Capistrano (#7); Indian unrest causes it to be abandoned, and a new one is founded on Nov. 1, 1776; the Acagchemem Indians build a small church now called the Serra Chapel (the oldest bldg. still in use in Calif.); every year on St. Joseph's Day (Mar. 19) the swallows return from their winter migration in Argentina. On Nov. 9 Archibald Robertson, lt. of royal engineers arrives in Boston, Mass. to supervise construction ' of defenses against the rebels, keeping a Diary containing numerous sketches (ends 1780). On Nov. 10 soldier-politician George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville (1716-85) (AKA Lord George Germain) is appointed as British secy. of the Am. colonies by George III, and says the rebellion can best be solved with one "decisive blow"; the same day the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) is established in Philly by the Continental Congress, with two battalions; it was originally founded in 1740 in New York as a branch of the British army; Tun Tavern(1693-1781) in Philly holds the first recruitment drive, also becoming one of the "birthplaces of Masonic teachings in America". On Nov. 12 Gen. Washington orders that "neither Negroes, Boys unable to bare Arms, nor old men unfit to endure the fatigues of the campaign" are to be recruited into the Continental Army. The British invent Deal or No Deal? On Nov. 15 the Battle of Kemp's Landing in Va. is a V for the British under cottish-born royal gov. John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809), who offers freedom to all slaves who will take up arms to defend the Crown, and to any child "born behind British lines", driving Am. slaveholders into the arms of the rebels and 80K Am. slaves into the arms of the Brits until the colonies (except Ga. and S.C.) reluctantly recruit slaves and freedmen into the army, made more palatable when owners are allowed to send them as substitutes for themselves; wherever the Brits march, escaped slaves flock to them for protection (which they repeat during the War of 1812 and Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864), totalling 100K during the war; Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment of black slaves wearing a patch reading "Liberty to Slaves", reaches 300 men incl. escaped slave Col. Tye (Titus Cornelius) (1753-80) reaches 300 men by Dec., and after seeing action is disbanded next year after most die from smallpox. On Nov. 17 George Washington and his ragtag army faceoff against 12K Redcoat regulars in Boston. On Nov. 19 prosperous skipper captain and patriot Isaac Sears (1730-86), the "king of the New York streets", together with a 100-man Conn. Light Horse Militia kidnap Rev. Samuel Seabury in Westchester, then parade him through New Haven, unsuccessfully trying to make him confess to being the Westchester Farmer; on Nov. 23 Sears raids James Rivington's print shop in Manhattan, putting the New-York Gazeteer out of biz for its articles critical of the Sons of Liberty; Alexander Hamilton rises unsuccessfully to his defense. On Nov. 28 the Continental Congress formally establishes the U.S. Navy; Boston Tea Party veteran John Kendrick (Kenrick) (1740-94) commands its first ship Fanny after being commissioned on May 26, 1777; black Sambos, er, blacks are prohibited from enlisting until WWII; Va. planter and Continental Congress member Carter Braxton (1736-97) spends his fortune equipping ships. On Nov. 29 Congress appoints a secret committee to seek help from Europeans. On Dec. 22 Esek Hopkins (1718-1802) of R.I. is named the first admiral (CIC) of the Continental Navy, which has a total of seven small converted merchant ships, with HQ in Philadelphia. On Dec. 23 George III closes the Am. colonies to commerce and trade, effective next Mar. On Dec. 31 after Col. Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) is appointed by Washington to lead a disastrous march through the Maine forests, the Battle of Quebec sees 1.2K Am. forces (900 regulars, 300 militia) under Gen. Richard Montgomery attack the Quebec City in Canada in a raging snowstorm, and are defeated by 1.8K British and Quebec forces under Sir Guy Carleton; Montgomery is KIA, Arnold is wounded and Daniel Morgan is taken POW along with 400 men; the Am. offensive in Canada is ended; Congress grants Gen. Washington's request to make Arnold (his favorite?) a brig. gen., holding Montreal (captured Nov. 13) until next June; "If Arnold had not been wounded, few doubt that Canada would be the 14th state." (Washington) On Dec. 31 George Washington and Martha Washington attend a service at Christ Church (founded 1759) in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., which has been used to house Conn. troops since the Battle of Lexington in 1775. In Dec. France informs Congress that it may offer support in the war. Louis XVI sends playwright Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-99) (who gives his daughter harp lessons) on a secret mission to England to negotiate a settlement with Chevalier D'Eon over the embarrassing gender matter (and to get back secret documents he/she obtained as a spy that could be even more embarrassing); D'Eon agrees to return the documents in exchange for a pension and a royal statement that he/she is a woman; starting in 1777 he/she spends the rest of his/her life (till 1810) dressed as a woman (the first time in history a man does an Orlando or reverse Joan of Arc at midlife?); since he/she refuses to be examined, and leaves the bettors up in the air, he/she sinks into poverty, occasionally entering British fencing tournaments to earn some money, and gaining a rep as the best female (dress-wearing) sword fighter on earth (she brings up the rear of the women's movement?); in 1775 while in England negotiating with Chevalier D'Eon, Beaumarchais meets Arthur Lee, the 3rd Am. commissioner to England (brother of William and Richard Henry Lee), who convinces him to lobby the French king to supply arms for the upcoming Am. Rev. The Continental Congress rations soldiers to one quart of spruce beer or cider per man per day. Inventions: A banner year for underwater inventions? Am. Yale engineer David Bushnell (1740-1824) invents the first torpedo, and itches to use it on the anally-retentive British?

1776 1776 was a leap year. It was the Hebrew year 5536/7. Jan. 1, 1776 fell on Mon. in the Gregorian Calendar, and Fri. in the Julian Calendar, which is 11 days behind. Pop. of Philadelphia: 40K; New York City and Boston combined: 24K; slave pop. in the Am. colonies: 500K. During the Am. Rev. War Loyalists comprise 15%-20% of the white pop., while patriots comprise 40%-45%, and the rest are indifferent; John Adams estimates that one-third of the Am. people support the rebels, one-third support the British, and one-third are indifferent - the pesky Scots and Irish are used to fighting the stankin' English and facing impossible odds, and take them over the top? At the start of the Am. Rev. the Hartford Courant (N.H.) is the most popular newspaper in the U.S., although pamphlets get far more circulation, of which most are church sermons. From 1776-1781 Britain sends 60K troops to America, incl. 29K Hessian soldiers from the German states of Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel (landgrave Frederick II), Hesse-Hanau, Waldeck, Anspach-Bayreuth and Anhalt-Zerbst; 7K Hessians die in the war and another 5K desert and settle down; Russia refuses to supply troops. On Jan. 1 King George III's speech to Parliament, calling his Am. subjects "deluded", and their leaders "traitorous", with designs for an "independent empire" arrives, laying out his plan to ramp up British forces with the assistance of foreign troops to crush the rebellion, pumping up the rebels to wage all-out war for independence, starting with burning it. On Jan. 1 the British Siege of Boston by the Continentals under Gen. Washington begins (ends Mar. 17); the Grand Union Flag modeled on the Union Jack with 13 red-and-white stripes is hoisted by Washington on Prospect Hill in a ceremony commemorating the 1776 inauguration of the Continental Army; when it is mistaken for a token of surrender, the need for a new nat. flag is recognized, and the Stars and Stripes vies with the Rattlesnake Flag for the honor; during the siege, George Washington quarters his troops in the bldgs. of Harvard Yard in Cambridge. On Jan. 1 Lord Dunmore shells Norfolk, Va., destroying almost two-thirds of it; later this year after the rebels drive him from his station on Gwynn's Island in Chesapeake Bay, he sends his fleet to the West Indies and skedaddles to England; meanwhile early in the year U.S. adm. Esek Hopkins is ordered by the Continental Congress to attack the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay, but decides against suicide and instead attacks the British post at New Providence in the Bahamas, capturing valuable war materiel; when he returns he fights an inconclusive battle on Apr. 7 with HMS Glasgow off Brenton's Point on Long Island Sound, and when he returns to Philly he is censured by the Continental Congress for disobeying orders then letting his fleet lay idle in Narragansett Bay: John Adams attempts an eloquent defense, but they don't buy it. On Jan. 2 George Washington writes a letter to his aide-de-camp Stephen Moylan from Cambridge, Mass. during the Siege of Boston, using the term "United States of America" - proving he invented it? Kingie, what will you do about the Constitution Solution? On Jan. 5 New Hampshire (N.H.) adopts the first U.S. state constitution, followed by South Carolina (S.C.) on Mar. 26, Georgia (Ga.) in Apr. (temporary constitution); Virginia (Va.) on June 29, New Jersey (N.J.) on July 2, Pennsylvania (Penn.) on Sept. 28, Maryland (Md.) on Nov. 11, and North Carolina (N.C.) on Dec. 18. On Jan. 10 (Wed.) self-taught English immigrant and former corset maker and excise officer Thomas "Tom" Paine (1737-1809), who arrived in Philly two years earlier pub. his anon. 46-page incendiary pamphlet Common Sense in Philadelphia, calling George III the "royal brute of Britain", calling for a declaration of independence and convincing Am. leaders of the need for a separation from England; 120K copies are printed in 3 mo., and 500K by the end of the year, and every tavern is buzzing about it (even without the Internet?); "The cause of America is, in great measure, the cause of all mankind"; "The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling"; "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil [and] in its worst state an intolerable one"; "There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required" "We have it in our power to begin the world anew"; John Adams later issues the soundbytes "History will ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine", and "Without the pen of Paine the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain"; Paine is given a position as aide to Am. Gen. Nathanael Greene (1742-86), and his future seems so bright he takes to wearing shades; too bad, after the war his Bible-rejecting Rationalist pubs. and support of the French Rev. turn the U.S. power structure against him, causing a misguided attempt to erase and/or defame his memory, and he dies a bitter, wronged man? On Jan. 16 Benjamin Franklin argues for an instrument of confederation in the Continental Congress, but is defeated. On Jan. 20 S.C. loyalists led by Robert Cunningham (1741-1813) sign a petition from prison agreeing to all demands by the newly formed state govt. of S.C. On Jan. 24 gregarious double-chinned 280 lb. U.S. Col. Henry "Ox" Knox (1750-1806) (former Boston bookseller, and friend of Gen. Nathanael Greene) finishes a 600 mi. trek over wintry terrain and delivers 60 tons of artillery from Ft. Ticonderoga to Cambridge, Mass. In Jan. Benjamin Franklin's loyalist son William Franklin (1731-1813) is deposed as royal gov. of N.J. under order of the Continental Congress, then captured in Perth Amboy, and imprisoned in June - erin go bragh? In Jan. after public faith in paper money declines to the point of worthlessness, the Continental Congress passes a resolution backing its money, with the soundbyte: "that if any person shall hereafter be so lost to all virtue and regard for his country, as to refuse to receive said bills in payment, or obstruct or discourage the currency or circulation thereof,... such person shall be deemed, published, and treated as an enemy of his country, and precluded from all trade or intercourse with the inhabitants of these colonies." On Feb. 27 the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge sees 1.6K upper N.C. British regulars and Scottish Highlanders under Gen. Donald McDonald marching to meet up with expected British sea-born reinforcements at Cape Fear spot what they believe to be a small force of rebels, then charging over a bridge 18 mi. NW of Wilmington, N.C., only to find out that they number 1K, commanded by Col. John Alexander Lillington (1725-86) and Col. Richard Caswell (1729-89); the rebels lose only one killed and one wounded, kill several loyalist leaders, and take 900 POWs, seizing arms, supplies, and 15K British pounds in cash; the rebel V stops British gen. Sir Henry Clinton (1738-95) from landing an expeditionary force in the Southern colonies. No more mopping that floor with that burning inside? On Feb. 29 Lord North tells the House of Commons that it will be cheaper in the long run to hire mercenaries than to recruit men at home for the Am. army, and he makes a motion that treaties between George III, the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, duke of Brunswick, and the hereditary prince of Hesse-Cassel be referred to the committee of supply; he is supported by Am. secy. (since 1775) George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, who notes that in every war or rebellion England has hired foreigners to help it; opponents counter that hiring mercenaries even at £7 per man would cost too much and would disgrace Britain in the eyes of all Europe; the Lords pass it by 100-32, and the Commons by 242-88, and seven small German states end up supplying 30K mercenaries, incl. 17K from Hesse-Cassel, most skilled at using bayonets. On Mar. 1 French foreign minister (since 1774) Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes (1717-87) advises his Spanish counterpart to support the Am. rebels against the English. On Mar. 2 the newly-equipped rebels under Shrewbury, Mass.-born Gen. Artemas Ward (1727-1800) begin shelling British troops in Boston, and on Mar. 4 capture Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor using night guerrilla tactics; a harsh winter storm prevents a British counterattack, and on Mar. 17 the British evacuate to New York and points south, while Gen. William Howe evacuates 900 loyalists to Nova Scotia (many of whom settle in New Brunswick), after which Gen. Washington marches his men back into the streets of Boston; Am.-born Tory scientist Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814), who spied for the British leaves Boston with them, going to Europe after the war ends and eventually entering the service of science-loving Palatinate prince-elector (since 1742) Karl Theodor (Charles Theodore) (1724-99), who gives him the title of Count Rumford; on Mar. 24 Washington writes a letter to the Continental Congress describing how he had made the city of Boston safe from British attack, causing them to give him a medal on Mar. 25; Tea Leaves, a collection of papers by the East India Tea Co. relating to the 1773 Boston Tea Party is taken by an unknown Boston person to Halifax, N.S., and pub. in 1884 by Francis S. Drake. Once again Chen I take your yen? Fledgling capitalist U.S.A. has a bible written by a stingy Scot? On Mar. 9 Scottish U. of Glasgow economist and Calvinist minister Adam Smith (1723-90) pub. his epic 1K-page capitalist Bible Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which advances the theory of laissez-faire economics, a "system of natural liberty", and the concept of the "invisible hand", becoming a bestseller, selling out in a few weeks; "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production, and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer"; "The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it"; "The propensity to truck, barter, and exchange... is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals"; "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest"; "Every individual endeavors to employ his capital so that its produce may be of greatest value. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own security, only his own gain. And he is in this led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it"; "To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation whose Government is influenced by shopkeepers"; "The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind." On Mar. 31 Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) writes to her hubby John Adams from Boston to put in her two pence worth from the sidelines: "This intelligence will make a plain truth for you, though a dangerous one. I could not join today in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent state, but tyrant state, and these Colonies. Let us separate: they are unworthy to be our brethren"; she adds: "By the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could [quoting Daniel Defoe]. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a revolution, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation"; when he writes back, calling her saucy, she retorts, "I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies for whilst you are proclaiming peace and goodwill to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over Wives." - no nooky for you when you get back? In Mar. Spanish Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza (1736-88), Lt. Jose Joaquin Moraga (1741-85), and Franciscan priest Friar Pedro Font arrive at the tip of San Francisco, and De Anza plants a cross at what is now Ft. Point, the start of the city of San Francisco, Calif. (named after St. Francis of Assisi) (modern pop. 3M/750K), founding Laguna de los Dolores (the Friday of Sorrows). On Apr. 3 Harvard College awards the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree to George Washington to go with his new medal. On Apr. 6 the Continental Congress declares all shipping ports open to all traffic except the British. On Apr. 6 King's College in Manhattan is commandeered by the patriots for use as a military hospital. On Apr. 12 N.C. issues the Halifax Resolves, becoming the first colony to empower its congressional delegates to vote for independence from Britain. On May 1 (May Day) Jesuit-trained anti-Jesuit former Bavarian canon law prof. Johann Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) of the U. of Ingolstadt (who got his job in 1773 after the Jesuits were suppressed by Pope Clement XIV) founds the secret Bavarian Order of the Illuminati ("the Very Perfectibles") in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, with five members, allegedly secretly backed by German Jewish big brain internat. bankerMayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), with the alleged aim of the destruction of Christendom and the Christian order of Europe by dividing and conquering and playing one nation off against the other via internat. bank financing et al., with the ultimate goal of the establishment of a New World Order (NWO), and which is behind the Am. Rev., French Rev., European revs. of the 19th cent., U.S. Civil War, Russian Rev., League of Nations, and United Nations (9/11?); deciding to work inside the Freemasons, the membership is up to 54 in 1779, branching through Europe and attracting Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Mozart; after it is suppressed on June 22, 1784, its few thousand members are exterminated from C Europe, but either it goes totally underground and keeps growing, or it generates one heck of a myth?; the Columbian Faction of the Illuminati is strong in North Am.? On May 2 King Louis XVI of France commits 1M livres in arms and munitions to the Am. rebels, and Spain promises to do the same; in June they establish the fictitious co. Roderique Hortalez et Cie to facilitate the transfer of arms to the rebels under the management of French dramatist Pierre Augustin Caron Beaumachais (1732-99); in Oct. Swiss-born Jacques Necker (1732-1804) (father of Madame de Stael) becomes French minister of finance (until Sept. 4, 1790), keeping Pierre du Pont de Nemours on as economist; the French end up supplying 90% of the rebels' munitions during the first two years of the war, incl. virtually all their guns and gunpowder; meanwhile this exacerbates the public debt and bread shortages, leading to rioting - and comments about eating cake? On May 4 Rhode Island declares independence from Britain. On May 6 the Va. Convention in Williamsburg votes unanimously to break ties with Britain after 169 years, and on May 15 becomes the first colony to send a delegate, Richard Henry Lee, to the Continental Congress with instructions to propose complete independence. On May 10 the Continental Congress authorizes all 13 colonies to form local govts; only Va., Penn. and Mass. are commonwealths. On May 10 John Paul Jones (1747-92), who entered Continental naval service in Philly in 1775 as senior lt. of the flagship Alfred is promoted to capt. of the sloop Providence, cruising the West Indies, Nova Scotia and British coast getting even with the Brits for past injustices, er, doing his patriotic duty; after captaining the Alfred, he is given the new 18-gun sloop Ranger, the first U.S. steam warship, one of 13 war vessels built by the rebels this year. On May 17 John Witherspoon (1723-94) (pres. of Princeton U. since 1768) delivers his sermon The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men in Princeton, N.J., arguing for independence, with the soundbyte: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, a nick of time. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery"; he goes on to sign the DOI after getting a phrase about "not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries" deleted. Do it to it? On June 7 Richard Henry Lee (1732-94) of Va. proposes Lee's Resolution(s), calling for a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence (DOI), and containing the soundbyte "That these United Colonies are and of right ought to be be free and independent states", but is prevented by illness from becoming a member, and Thomas Jefferson is appointed to take his place; the moderates vote for a 3-week delay, and on June 11 Congress appoints a Committee of Five to draft a DOI; other members are Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) of Penn., John Adams (1735-1826) of Mass., Robert R. Livingston (1746-1813) of N.Y. (not to be confused with N.Y. Sen. Philip Livingston (1716-78), who later signs the DOI with him), and Roger Sherman (1721-93) of Conn.; John Adams (1735-1826), "the atlas of American independence", knowing he's the force driving the whole shebang, and was the first to stick his neck out and call for independence (proved by being at the top of the British hanging list), actually hands Jefferson the job that he could have had, thinking that it will be just another forgotten declaration; too bad, in later years, when people don't remember it that way, and July 4 and Jefferson's DOI are celebrated instead of him and his longtime work, he goes ape? - that's me, Joe the process server? On June 8 the Battle of Trois-Rivieres (halfway between Montreal and Quebec) is a D for the Am. rebels led by Gen. John Sullivan, who are attacked as they attempt to siege Quebec in the face of British artillery, then driven back toward Montreal by the Brits under Sir Guy Carleton, only to counterattack at you know where and get their cans kicked, after which the survivors return to Montreal. On June 11-28 the Declaration of Independence (DOI) is written by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) of Va. from a rough draft by English-born Thomas Paine (1737-1809) which he gave to John Adams (1735-1826), and which ends up with "some of the most manly sentiments expunged", according to Abigail Adams (incl. the abolition of slavery?); Jefferson makes a Freudian slip and writes "fellow subjects", then changes it to "fellow citizens"; on June 28 Jefferson reads it to the Continental Congress, thrilling them with the immortal soundbytes: "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinion of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor"; the phrase "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are adopted from "Father of Liberalism" John Locke (1632-1704): "Life, health, liberty, or possessions"; the rough draft used inalienable instead of unalienable, which means the same thing; the eternal debate begins about whether the U.S. is founded on the Bible because it mentions a Creator and the great majority of Founding Fathers claim to be Bible believers, even though the Bible contains no mention of the merits or defects of the Athenian democracy or the Roman Republic, and sanctions slavery, polygamy and male supremacy while clearly favoring a theocracy, and the intellectual elite of the Founding Fathers tend towards Deism, which takes notice of the investigations of naturalists into the wondrous designs in Nature, yet also takes notice of Bible skeptics who lampoon the Bible as the flawed and often incomprehensible work of primitive superstitious people who fall for fairy tales, and consider the Bible God Jehovah as a Hebrew tribal god far removed from the real Creator; do Bible believers merely try to accommodate to the New World Order and cling to the Old Time Religion while not being the intellectual sparks for it?; is the Bible being given a bad rap from comically flawed translations and actually harmonizes with Science? On June 12 Va. becomes the first colony to adopt a bill of rights, the Va. Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason (1725-92), which influences Thomas Jefferson. On June 15 the Delaware gen. assembly votes to suspend govt. under the British Crown. On June 15 the Continentals under Gen. Benedict Arnold abandon Montreal after attempting to burn it, uttering the soundbyte "Let us quit... and secure our own country before it is too late." On June 16 the Continentals seize Scottish-born British Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell (1739-91) (veteran of the 1775 Battle of Quebec) in Boston Harbor, and hold him as a POW (until May 1778). Meanwhile, on the other side of the North American continent? On June 17 Lt. Jose Joaquin Moraga leads a band of colonists from Monterey Presidio 125 mi. NW to San Francisco, and on Sept. 17 they found the Presidio of Yerba Buena (Sp. "good herb") (later the Presidio of San Francisco); on Oct. 9 a group of Spanish Franciscan missionaries arrives led by Father Junipero Serra's companion Father Francisco Palou (1722-90) and founds Mission San Francisco de Asis (Dolores) (#6 of 21). On June 19 the King's Royal Regiment of New York is raised by exiled loyalist leader Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet of New York (1741-1830) (formerly of Johnstown, Tyron County, N.Y.), going on to engage in operations in the Mohawk Valley of New York. Big Bill and Black Dick are coming, the jig is up, rebel scum? On June 25 a massive British war fleet from Halifax (280 ships, 10K sailors, 33K soldiers, incl. 9K Hessians, paid 25 cents a day) (largest British force of the cent., and largest amphibious force so far in history) under Gen. William Howe (1729-1814) and his swarthy older brother Vice-Adm. Lord (Viscount) Richard "Black Dick" Howe (1726-99) arrives off Sandy Hook in E N.J. at the S entrance to Lower New York Bay, causing the Continentals that left Montreal to retreat by way of Lake Champlain, leaving Gen. Benedict Arnold behind to build and command a fleet to control the lake. On June 28 Thomas Hickey, a bodyguard of Gen. George Washington is hung for mutiny, becoming the first person executed by the U.S. army after he reveals a plot to deliver Washington to the enemy in cahoots with New York City mayor David Matthews and New York colony gov. William Tryon. On June 28 400 Continental troops under eccentric former British Army officer (Irishman born in England) Maj. Gen. Charles Lee (1732-82) win the Battle of Ft. Sullivan (Sullivan's Island) on Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbor against a heavy British naval bombardment under Adm. Sir Peter Parker, 1st Baronet (1721-1811) (no relation to Spiderman?), after which Charleston-born Col. William Moultrie (1730-1805), who supervised the construction of the palmetto fort surrounded by a 16-ft. sand wall and manned by 31 guns is promoted to brig. gen., and the fort renamed Ft. Moultrie. On June 29 Va. Patrick Henry (1736-99) becomes the first gov. of rebel Va. (until 1779). On June 29 a letter signed "Republicus" appears in the Penn. Evening News, referring to the "United States of America" - yee-ooh-nighted states of ah-mer-ah-kah? By June 5.5K of the 10K-man Continental Army in the Northern colonies are incapacitated by the dread smallpox, to which the British troops are generally immune as a result of mild childhood bouts with the disease or by inoculation; Philly-born Continental Army physician-in-chief (first U.S. surgeon-gen.) John Morgan (1735-89) writes the pamphlet A Recommendation of Inoculation. In June gov. of Spanish La. (1769-77) Luis de Unzaga y Amezaga (1721-90) (pr. "oon-THAH-gah") secretly gives five tons of gunpowder to Va. rebel capt. George Gibson (1747-91) and Md. lt. William Linn (1734-81), who move it up the Mississippi River under the protection of the Spanish flag, then up the Ohio River, after which it is used to defend Ft. Pitt, where Gibson heads "Gibson's Lambs", after which both get promoted to col.; meanwhile Jesuit-hating Charles III of Spain secretly supports the Am. rebels, and tells Unzaga to keep the Brits from cutting off Am. supplies from the S. In June recently widowed Betsy Ross (1752-1836) (as she later claims to her daughter privately) is visited in Philly by Congressional reps., incl. Washington, Robert Morris of Penn. and George Ross of Penn., who ask her to make a flag, and switch from a 6-pointed to a 5-pointed star after she claims she can make it with a single scissors cut; her grandson William J. Canby makes the first public claim about this in 1870 to the Penn. Historical Society; in 1917 letters from Francis Hopkinson (1737-91) of N.J. are found which point to him as the flag's creator. On July 1 the Cherokees begin attacking settlements along the S.C. frontier, and on Aug. 1 after doing a Paul Revere and galloping from farm to farm to sound the alarm, Jewish plantation owner Francis Salvador (b. 1747) (who in 1774 was elected to the S.C. assembly, becoming the first Jew to be elected to an Am. colonial legislature) is scalped, being found by militia cmdr. Maj. Andrew Williamson before he dies, asking whether they had beaten the enemy, receiving an affirmative answer, then shaking his hand before dying, becoming the first Jew to die for Am. independence. Firecracker hot weather sparks a complete split with old pop? On July 1 (Mon.) after debates presided over by Va. rep. Benjamin Harrison V (1726-91) (father of future U.S. pres. William Henry Harrison, and great-grandfather of U.S. pres. Benjamin Harrison) the Congressional vote for independence is 9-3; on July 2 the final draft of the DOI is made, and Lee's Resolutions are adopted; on July 3 after the heat is turned up, and lifelong bachelor Caesar Rodney (1728-84) of Del. rides 80 mi. through a thunderstorm at night on July 1-2 to break the deadlock in the Del. delegation, the vote becomes 12-0 (N.H. votes for it first, and N.Y. abstains), and on July 4 (Thur.) the Continental Congress in Philly unanimously approves the DOI, solemnizing the Am. Rev. (War) (Apr. 19, 1775 to Sept. 3, 1783) (the rebels prefer to call it the Am. Civil War, the religious ones saying they aren't rebelling but obeying God) after James Wilson (1742-98) breaks the deadlock in the Penn. delegation by getting a 3-week delay so he can go back home and convince his voters, who had been against independence but finally okay it; after Ben Franklin convinces holdouts with the observation "We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately", it is signed first on July 4 by cocky Continential Congress pres. John Hancock (1737-93) (AKA Hancocky) of Mass. with a huge signature and the cocky comment "There, King George will be able to read that without spectacles" (actually a myth?); John Dickinson, suddenly getting cold feet, warns against "launching our fortunes into the storm on a sheet made of paper", and refuses to sign it, uttering the soundbyte "My conduct this day I expect will give the finishing blow to my once too great, and my integrity considered, now too diminished popularity"; the 1,335-word DOI contains the immortal soundbyte: "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. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"; it is first printed on the evening of July 4 by Irish-born Am. printer John Dunlap (1747-1812) (1784 founder of the "Penn. Packet", first daily newspaper in Am.) of 48 High St., Philly, becoming known as the Dunlap Broadsides (24 of 200 copies survive to modern times), and the original finds shelter in 10 different cities and five different states until 1952, when it finds a permanent home in the U.S. Nat. Archives in Washington, D.C.; the remaining delegates sign on Aug. 2, except peachy keen multitasker Thomas McKean (1734-1817) of Del., who is busy defending New York City, and can't sign until next year; a total of 56 (out of 3M in the Am. colonies) sign, incl. 24 lawyers and jurists, 11 merchants, and nine farmers and large plantation owners; 24 have seminary degrees; 21 have some Scottish ancestry; nine will die of wounds or from hardships suffered in the war; five will be captured as traitors and tortured before they die; two will lose their sons; one will have his two sons captured; 12 will have their homes ransacked and burnt; every signer except John Adams owns or has owned slaves; only one dude named Penn signs, John Penn (1741-88), but he was born in Va. and represents N.C.; Irish-born Philly merchant Charles Thomson (1729-1824), secy. of state of Congress (1774-89) signs the DOI and later (1782) designs the Great Seal of the U.S. with William Barton (1754-1817); on July 8 Col. (later Brig. Gen.) John Nixon (1727-1815) of Mass. gives the first public reading of the DOI, announced by the Liberty Bell (3'2" long clapper) to a crowd gathered at Independence Square in Philly; on July 9 news of the DOI reaches New York City, and Gen. Washington has it read to his troops, uttering the soundbyte "The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army"; after they return to their barracks and campgrounds, a crowd rampages through town, breaking the windows of prominent loyalists; only 16% of able-bodied Am. males participate in the war, and more fight for the British than the rebels; a large percentage of the rebel army is Irish or Scottish; loyalist Philly merchant Joseph Stansbury (1750-1809) gets caught singing "God Save the King" with others in his house, and ends up imprisoned in Burlington, N.J., then bounces back when the Brits take Philly, gets imprisoned again in 1780 when they lose it, and after promising to be good sits out the war in New York City, while writing Loyal Verses in support of the king (pub. 1860); loyalist Capt. John Butler of Conn. flees to Canada after the war starts, and is made deputy commissioner of Indian affairs by British supt. of Indian affairs Guy Johnson - if it weren't for the Irish and Scots, who have been used to fighting the stankin' English since the 1066 Norman Invasion, Americans would still be loyal subjects of the British crown, and Washington would become a mere footnote in history books, a despicable rebel who cracked his teeth on walnuts and got what's coming to him when his rebellion fell apart and he was hanged, and the Bible would be cited to justify the king, starting with Romans 13:1, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and will incur judgment"? On July 2 the huge British fleet under Adm. Richard Howe arrives off Staten Island, and makes a show of force by sending HMS Phoenix and HMS Rose up the Hudson River with guns blazing, all the while offering amnesty to all God-defying rebels who will lay down their arms and grovel at the authorities' feet; former colonial gov. William Tryon, forced to remain aboard ship since returning from England more than a year ago is finally allowed to debark; John Dickinson, who refused to sign the DOI is made brig. gen. in the Continental Army in charge of 10K soldiers of the Penn. militia, and leads them to Elizabeth, N.J. to protect against a British invasion from Staten Island, but when his bad rep catches up with him he resigns in Dec. 1776 and goes into a Quaker-conscience 2-year funk. On July 2 N.J. adopts a 1776 N.J. Constitution; suffrage is given to "all inhabitants of this colony of full age who are worth 50 pounds proclamation money clear estate in the same, and who have resided in the county... twelve months", allowing women and blacks to vote (until 1807), although one catch is that married women legally own no property unless their hubbies give it to them as a "gift". On July 9 New York becomes the 13th colony to ratify the DOI; the 2-ton lead equestrian statue of King George III in Bowling Green by English sculptor Joseph Wilton (1722-1803) (commissioned in 1766 and erected in Aug. 1770) is torn down by an angry mob led by the Sons of Liberty, its head sawn off, and the rest made into 42K musket balls for the Continental Army by the wife and daughter of the gov. of Conn.; the old English-Scottish game of lawn bowling is given up during the Am. Rev., and becomes extinct in the U.S. until 1879. On July 12 after the New York Hospital opens its first facility (£4K) on Pearl St., it treats its first patients, two Continental Army soldiers wounded in an engagement between shore batteries and two British men-of-war trying to force their way up the Hudson. On July 14 (Sun.) Daniel Boone's Big Rescue begins after his daughter Jemima Boone (1762-1829), along with Elizabeth "Betsey" Callaway (1761-) and Frances "Fanny" Callaway (1762-) are kidnapped by a Shawnee-Cherokee war party outside of Ft. Boonesborough, Ky. while canoeing; on July 17 Boone and his party ambush them during their morning meal while making a fire, with Jemima uttering the soundbyte "That's daddy's gun", later claiming they hadn't been raped yet ("The Indians were kind to us"), creating a big legend which ends up in James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826); in Aug. Elizabeth marries Samuel Henderson, and next year Jemima marries rescue party member Flanders Callaway (1752-1829) (later having daughter Elizabeth Callaway and Capt. James Callway, and in whose home Daniel Boone spends his old age), while Frances marries Capt. John Holder. On July 15 the DOI is read to every brigade in New York City; on July 19 Congress resolves to have the "Unanimous Declaration" engrossed on parchment for the signature of the delegates, and on Aug. 2 most members of the Continental Congress attach their signatures to it. On July 25 Rev. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) delivers the valedictory address at Yale College, calling America the "favorite land of Heaven", which was born at the time of the Englightenment and the Scientific Rev., "when every species of knowledge, natural and moral, is arrived to a state of perfection, which the world never before saw", and "mankind have in a great degree learned to despise the shackles of custom, and the chains of authority, and claim the priviledge of thinking for themselves"; the American people are a new people "who have the same religion, the same manners, the same interests, the same language, and the same essential forms and principles of civic government"; the "boasted British constitution [is] but an uncouth Gothic pile, covered and adorned by the elegance of modern architecture", and its institutions bore the "gross traces of antient folly and savageness"; "It is a very common and just remark that the progress of Liberty, of Science and of Empire has been with that of the sun, from east to west, since the beginning of time"; "The Empire of North America will be the last on earth"; he then joins the Continental Army as a chaplain, and becomes pres. #8 of Yale College in 1795-1817. In July Conn. diplomat and merchant Silas Deane (1737-89) goes to France to solicit support for the rebel cause, and helps arrange France's first secret aid shipment using as middleman dramatist Pierre de Beaumarchais. On Aug. 1 British gen. Sir Henry Clinton arrives on Staten Island. On Aug. 2 the remaining Continental Congress members get brave enough to sign the risky DOI and enter the immortal roll of 56 DOI Signers, incl. Va. plantation owners Carter Braxton (1736-97) of Chericoke and Elsing Green, Benjamin Harrison V (1726-91) of Berkeley Plantation, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) of Monticello, Richard Henry Lee (1732-94) and his brother Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734-97) of Westmoreland County; George Wythe (1726-1806) of Va., who was too poor to get his own college degree but through self-study became America's first law prof. and mentor of Thomas Jefferson; Thomas Nelson Jr. (1738-89), creator of the Va. militia; Annapolis, Md.-born atty.-planter Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-82), who received the 10K-acre Carrollton Manor in Frederick County, Md. from his father in 1766; future U.S. Supreme Court justice (1796-1811) Samuel Chase (1741-1811) and future federal district judge for Md. (1790-99) William Paca (1740-99); 70-y.-o. >Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) of Penn. (oldest DOI signer), along with Philly merchant George Clymer (1739-1813), partner in the prosperous firm of Merediths & Clymer, financier Robert Morris (1734-1806), John Morton (1724-77) (chmn. of the Articles of Confederation committee), George Ross (1730-79) (former crown prosecutor, who flip-flopped), physician Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) (known for treating the poor), Irish-born James Smith (1719-1806), Irish-born ironmaster George Taylor (1716-81), and Scottish-born rich self-made lawyer James Wilson (1742-98); cousins John Adams (1735-1826) and Samuel Adams (1722-1803) of Mass., along with Harvard-educated gerrymandering merchant Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), and Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814), known as the "Objection Maker" for objecting to nearly every proposal and measure, which ends up in his being treated as a mass pain and ignored?; self-educated atty. Samuel Huntington (1731-96) (who goes on to become the 1st of 10 presidents of the U.S. in Congress Assembled in 1781-9), sheriff, militia leader and former congressional commissioner of Indian affairs (1774) Oliver Wolcott (1726-97), and Conn. merchant William Williams (1731-1811) (Wolcott votes, gets sick, and is replaced by Williams, who signs, although Wolcott later gets to sign when he gets well); Kingston, N.J.-born N.C. merchant Joseph Hewes (1730-79), who has a substantial mercantile and shipping business; N.Y. big landowner Lewis Morris (1726-98), Welsh-born N.Y. merchant Francis Lewis (1713-1802) (who made a fortune supplying British troops and N.Y. Hudson River patroons), Philip Livingston (1716-78) and Robert Robert Livingston (1746-1813) of N.Y.; George Read (1733-98) of Del. (pres. of the committee that drafted the DOI); 27-y.-o. Oxford-educated Edward Rutledge (1749-1800) of S.C. (youngest DOI signer), along with jurists Thomas Heyward Jr. (1746-1809) (ancestor of "Porgy and Bess" author DuBose Heyward) and Arthur Middleton (1742-87), who inherited his plantation on the Ashley River through his mother; Kittery, Maine-born Portsmouth, N.H. merchant William Whipple Jr. (1731-85), who gave up slave trading and deep-water sea voyages in 1760 to form a mercantile partnership with his brother Joseph Whipple; N.J. surveyor Abraham Clark (1726-94), N.J. farmer John Hart (1711-79) (owner of fulling factories and grist mills), Philly-born Francis Hopkinson (1737-91) (composer, poet and satirist, and first graduate of the College of Philadelphia, founded by his father along with Benjamin Franklin, who claims to have designed the U.S. flag), wishy-washy Princeton man Richard Stockton (1730-81) (who ends up getting captured and maltreated by the Brits), and Scottish-born Rev. John Knox Witherspoon (1723-94) of N.J. (pres. of Princeton U. in 1768-94)) (only clergyman to sign); future abolitionist William Ellery (1727-1820) and longtime agitator Stephen Hopkins (1707-85) of R.I. (speaker of the R.I. assembly and brother of Esek Hopkins); English-born ne'er-do-well political schemer Button Gwinnett (1735-77) of Ga. (first signature on the left) and his rivals, plantation owner-physician Lyman Hall (1724-90) and George Walton (1749-1804) - I'm Barack Obama, and I approved this message? On Aug. 5 the Continental Congress appoints Rufus Putnam (1738-1824) of Mass. (cousin of Gen. Israel Putnam) as engineer with the rank of full col.; after he insists on his own Army Corps of Engineers and they fail to take action, he resigns and accepts command of a Mass. regiment, going on to rise to brig. gen., and there is no ACE until 1779. On Aug. 9 Bunker Hill hero John Nixon is promoted to brig. gen. and given command of Governor's Island in New York Harbor; New York City-born Gen. William Alexander (1726-83) of N.J., who claims the title of Earl of Stirling and serves under Washington at Brooklyn with valor is the only U.S. gen. with a British title of nobility; Thaddeus (Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura) Kosciuszko (1746-1817) of Poland enters the Continental Army as a volunteer after being wounded by the retainers of Grand Hetman Sosnowski of Sownowicka while trying to elope with his youngest daughter; having studied fortifications and naval tactics at Polish govt. expense in Prussia, France, and Italy, he impresses Gen. Washington, who ends up making him his adjutant and raising him to the rank of artillery col.; freeborn black New Englander Agrippa Hull (1759-1838) becomes Kosciuszko's orderly - the original water gate? On Aug. 15 the first Hessian troops land on Staten Island. Bold Washington saves the American Revolution from an early grave? On Aug. 22 after Gen. William Howe decides on a quick knockout punch, 10K-15K British troops and 7.8K battle-hardened Hessians under Seven Years' War veteran Lt. Gen. Leopold Philip von Heister (1707-77) leave Staten Island, cross the Narrows in 75 flatboats with planked-up sides, and land at Gravesend Bay and Denyse Ferry (later Ft. Hamilton) with cannon, horses, munitions, and supplies, beginning the Battle of Brooklyn, part of the larger battle of Battle of Long (Nassau) Island (in modern-day Prospect Park in Brooklyn), with Gen. Washington's 7.5K Continental troops (6K with military experience) well dug-in at Brooklyn Heights and in forward positions, but failing to defend Jamaica Pass except for five mounted militia officers with instructions to send warning if threatened; Continental musket fire takes a heavy toll on the British troops as they try to advance uphill, causing Gen. Howe to switch tactics and position about half his men near the three southern passes to feign an attack, then gather 10K troops at Flatlands and march them under a nearly full moon N to Jamaica Pass, surprising and capturing Washington's officers there at about 2:00 a.m. on Aug. 27 without firing a shot; after waiting in vain for a surrender offer, Howe personally fires two shots at 9:00 a.m. in Bedford, signalling 4K British soldiers to attack, and 1.2K Continentals under Gen. Israel "Old Put" Putnam hold them until another 8K redcoats arrive at about 10:00 a.m., gain support from local loyalists who know the terrain, and come up from behind to surround them, after which most surrender before/after many are massacred in the Gowanus marshes; a band of 400 badass Marylanders then launch a daredevil assault on the 10K encircling British and Hessian forces, and are forced back after losing 150, making a stand at the stone Vechte-Cortelyou (Old Stone) House (built 1699), giving their fellow troops time to retreat across a bridge over Gowanus Creek to find refuge in the forts on Brooklyn Heights, having lost 1,407 men KIA, wounded, or missing, vs. minimal losses for the gorgeous Brits; Washington crosses the East River from Manhattan to take charge, and sets up HQ at the Cornell Mansion on Pierpoint Place on Brooklyn Heights, then brings over reinforcements from New York, until his aides persuade him that Manhattan offers better opportunities for defensive action; on Aug. 29 (night) a lucky storm and a failure of Adm. Howe to block them allows Washington to retreat over the 1-mi. East River with his 9.5K remaining men from Fulton Ferry Landing under cover of fog and rain to Manhattan without loss of life, the boats manned by the Marblehead mariners, led by col. (later brig. gen.) John Glover (1732-97), and Washington being the last man on the last boat to cross; they then march up Manhattan to Harlem Heights after losing a total of 500 killed and wounded, and 1.1K taken POW, incl. Gen. John Sullivan; British casualties are under 400; Washington and his troops spend most of Sept. on Harlem Heights observing Gen. Howe's movements on Manhattan and attempting to avoid a direct battle. In Aug. R.I. Quaker Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819) is dismissed from her Friends meeting after pissing them off by attending meetings of late evangelist George Whitefield during his final revival tour of New England; after coming down with a fever in Oct. and recovering, she announces that she had a vision in which she died and was sent back to Earth to preach to a "lost and guilty, gossiping, dying World", and adopts the name Publick Universal Friend, going on to preach total sexual abstinence and claim to be Jesus Christ. On Sept. 2 after Gen. Nathanael Greene urges torching two-thirds loyalist New York City, Gen. Washington writes to the Continental Congress that "They would derive great convenience from it on the one hand, and much property would be destroyed on the other"; Congress writes back that they hope it can be recaptured and oppose a scorched-earth policy; after many regiments vote to disband and return home in the wake of the Brooklyn defeat, Washington also urges Congress to enlist a regular army for the duration of the war, and on Sept. 10 Congress resolves to reform the Continental Army into 88 battalions to be "enlisted as soon as possible, and to serve during the war", but its members are so fearful that a standing army may bring "military despotism" that they retain the old method of levying troops by requisitions upon the states, and the appointment of officers without proper regard to their qualifications. On Sept. 6 a hurricane hits Guadeloupe, killing 6K. But all is not lost! Herr Vashington has secret veapons? On Sept. 6-7 (at night) the pioneering 1-man submarine of David Bushnell, the American Turtle, a 6-ft. pearl-shaped sphere made with oak staves bound with iron hoops and covered with pitch, operated by Sgt. Ezra Lee (1749-1821) is launched in New York Harbor against the British flagship HMS Eagle, but doesn't damage it since his torpedo auger can't screw into the ship's copper plates, and explodes harmlessly after being cast adrift; it never sees another mission - back to the drawing boards? On Sept. 9 the Continental Congress adopts the name United States of America, replacing United Colonies of America. On Sept. 11 (the first U.S. 9/11?) the Continental Congress sends Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge to meet with British Adm. Lord Richard Howe and his secy. Sir Henry Strachey (1737-1810) on Staten Island in the dining room of the 2-story stone Conference House in the Tottenville section (built in 1680 by Capt. Christopher Billopp of the British Navy), then receive the ridiculous surrender terms of "clemency and full pardon to all repentant rebels" laying down their arms; captured U.S. gen. John Sullivan is exchanged for a captured British gen., and sent with Washington's grudging consent to Philly to carry the terms to Congress, and they tell the Brits to stuff it, causing negotiations to break off - ahoo-oo, play something country? You're a nosy protective mother, yes you are? On Sept. 15 after Gen. Washington positions 9.5K men on Harlem Heights and Kings Bridge, 5K along the shore of the East River above New York, and leaves only 5K in Manhattan, the redcoats under Gen. William Howe arrive and fight the Battle of Kips Bay on Manhattan with five frigates, which disperse the defenders with cannon fire, allowing his infantry to climb the steep rocks at the foot of East 34th St. and capture New York City; too bad, horny Howe then accepts an invitation for lunch and tea at the posh Inclenberg (Dutch "beautiful") Mansion on Murray Hill (39th St. and Park Ave.) of pro-rebel Quaker socialite Mary Lindley Murray (1726-82), whose rich loyalist husband Robert Murray (1721-86) (who emigrated in 1732 and got rich in Philly as a miller and trader) rented 29 acres from the city at 38th-39th Sts. and Lexington Ave. to Madison Ave. in 1762 and built it as the #1 mansion in the city, living luxuriously and introducing the first state coach, which he calls his "leathern conveniency"; after the war in 1784 their loyalist son Lindley Murray (1745-1826) flees to England goes on to write English school grammar textbooks that sell 20M copies, making him the best-selling author on Earth until McGuffey's Readers come out in 1836, although the 16M sold in the U.S. are pirate editions because the U.S. is a copyright-dissing pirate nation until 1891; while carrying on an affair with the wife of a subordinate, Howe narrowly misses catching Gen. Washington, who has galloped down from the Jumel Mansion to hold off the British until Gen. Israel Putnam could withdraw troops trapped at the Battery (a setup by Mary Murray, making her a patriot hero, or a myth based on Circe or Siren?); meanwhile another woman near the Battery starts a fire that diverts British attention from Putnam's troops and creates smoke, masking Washington's retreat to Harlem Heights, where he repulses a British attack on Sept. 16 at the Battle of Harlem Heights with help from his sharpshooters, who use Penn. long rifles, accurate to 200-400 yards, vs. 60-80 yards for British muskets, causing British complaints of "unsportsmanlike conduct"; on Sept. 21 a fire starting at the foot of Broad St. in New York City burns one-third of the city, destroying 493 houses, incl. 100 along the Hudson River, and the British accuse the rebels of starting it to deprive them of winter HQ: the entire W side of Broadway between Whitehall and Barclay Sts. is burned, incl. Trinity Church; a citizen bucket brigade saves 10-y.-o. St. Paul's Chapel - yah, it's my town? Speaking of fires? On Sept. 21 21-y.-o. Yale-educated Continental army capt. and former school teacher (1773-5) Nathan Hale (b. 1755) is arrested by British soldiers (carrying his Yale degree) while dining with French and Indian War hero Robert Rogers (who pretended to be a spy like him to set him up), after spying on British troops starting on Sept. 12 and setting numerous fires to harry the British, then taking a boat across Long Island Sound disguised as a Dutch schoolmaster; on Sept. 22 he is hanged by order of Gen. William Howe, his immortal last words being "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" (a paraphrase of Joseph Addison's 1712 play Cato, Act. 4 Scene 4, "What a pity it is that we can die but once to serve our country") - class dismissed? On Sept. 26 Congress elects Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) as commissioner to France, joining Silas Deane and Arthur Lee of Va., with power to negotiate treaties with European govts.; Franklin sails for France on Oct. 26, arrives on Dec. 3, moves into the Auteuil Quarter (16th Arrondisement), becomes a celeb (Le Bonhomme Richard), and wins a loan from France to fight the war, secured by 5M lbs. of Va. tobacco; Deane and Franklin become allies, but ever-suspicious Arthur Lee later accuses Deane of corruption (forcing his recall next year), and then targets Franklin, so that by early 1778 they are hardly speaking to each other. In Sept. the 2.4 km First Great St. Leger Stakes for 3-year-olds, the final leg of the English Triple Crown, founded by Col. Barry St. Leger (1737-89) (pr. SILL-in-jur) is first run in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England; the first winner is brown bay filly Allabaculia; after the race St. Leger leaves to join Gen. Burgoyne in the Hudson Valley. On Oct. 3 the Continental Congress borrows $5M to halt the rapid depreciation of its currency, and starts a nat. lottery to raise money for the army. On Oct. 16 Washington crosses the Harlem River, leaving New York City to the British, and sets up new HQ at the village of White Plains, N.Y. by Oct. 21; British volunteer Thomas Paine marches with Washington's army; Gen. William Howe wins a knighthood for his glorious victory - call me Lord Vader? On Oct. 11 the makeshift U.S. Navy flotilla of schooners and open boats under Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold on Lake Champlain meets the 12K-man force of British Gen. Sir Guy Carleton (1724-1808) at the Battle of Valcour Bay, and after both sides suffer heavy losses, Arnold's fleet slips through the British fleet at night, but the British pursue and soundly defeat him on Oct. 13, causing Arnold to run his schooner aground and burn it along with the last open boats to keep them from being captured; Congress considers it a V since it causes Carleton to delay his invasion of the U.S., although he does capture Crown Point; meanwhile Congress appoints a commission, which incl. Charles Carroll of Carrollton (Md.) (the only Catholic signer of the DOI) to visit Canada in a vain effort to talk them into joining them; wealthy N.H. shipowner John Langdon (1741-1819) resigns from the Continental Congress to become its naval agent, going on to supervise new warship construction. On Oct. 12 British Gen. William Howe loads a large part of his army into 90 flat boats and lands them on Throg's Neck, while Gen. Washington sends a force to meet them in lower Westchester; Howe takes the heights of New Rochelle, and is joined by a newly-arrived contingent of Hessian troops under Gen. Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen (1716-1800). On Oct. 26 (afternoon) George III addresses the opening of Parliament, saying: "Nothing could have afforded me so much satisfaction as to have been able to inform you... that my unhappy people, recovered from their delusion, had delivered themselves from the oppression of their leaders and return to their duty. But so daring and desperate is the spirit of those leaders, whose object has always been dominion and power, that they have now openly renounced all allegiance to the Crown... and have presumed to set up their rebellious confederacies for independent states. If their treason be suffered to take root, much mischief must grow from it"; Lord Germain authorizes more troops to be sent. On Oct. 28-31 as fat horny Franklin wallows in luxury in France, ascetic pious Gen. Washington and his 13K troops suffer heavy casualties against an equal number of British-Hessian troops in the Battle of White Plains, almost holding them until Howe brings up reinforcements and captures Chatterton Hill, then retreating under cover of darkness in the hills of North Castle as Howe falls back to Fordham Heights. In Oct. the Va. gen. assembly meets for the first time, and hears petitions for the disestablishment of the Church of England and the removal of disabilities from dissenters; after Thomas Jefferson asks "Has the state a right to adopt an opinion in matters of religion?", they repeal British statutes requiring church attendance, and exempt dissenters from taxes to support the Anglican Church, but defer action on a proposal to levy a gen. tax on all churchgoing citizens for the support of their ministers. On Nov. 14 after Washington and his 5K troops withdraw across the Hudson River, they establish HQ at Ft. Lee (formerly Ft. Constitution) in N.J. on the Palisades; Irish-born Col. Robert Magaw (1738-90) (a Penn. atty.) is left behind with 3K Penn. volunteers to defend Ft. Washington in Manhattan on Harlem Heights, but despite orders from the Continental Congress to hold it at all costs Magaw finds himself heavily outnumbered and surrenders it on Nov. 16 along with its precious military stores to Hessian troops led by Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen, after they lose 458 out of 8K men; the Brits capture 2,828 rebels and execute 53 of them while Washington watches helpless from across the river at Ft. Lee; on Nov. 18 Washington evacuates Ft. Lee across the Hackensack River, leaving it under the command of Gen. Nathanael Greene; on Nov. 20 British Gen. Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) leads 4K troops across the Hudson River about 6 mi. N of Ft. Lee, hoping to trap the Continental Army between the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, advancing with 8K men toward Ft. Lee, causing Greene to evacuate, leaving 50 British-made cannon, large stores of ammo and flour, tents blankets, and other provisions; the British gain control of the Hudson, and Greene and his men join Washington across the Hackensack River, beginning a retreat across N.J. on Nov. 21, with 90% of the rebel army gone, down to 3K men, causing Washington to send pleas for help to Maj. Gen. Charles Lee (1732-82) and his 4K men in Penn., who have opted to employ guerrilla tactics, causing Lee to take his time - the rebel cause seems lost? On Nov. 15 the Continental Congress fixes the relative ranks within the U.S. Army; despite John Paul Jones lobbying for the U.S. Navy to have parity, with the soundbyte "Were that regulation to take place in our Navy, it would prevent numberless disputes and duellings that otherwise would be unavoidable", it takes until July 16, 1862 for Congress to establish the four highest naval ranks of adm., vice-adm., rear-adm., and commodore, until which the highest rank is capt. On Nov. 16 after it advertises itself as selling arms and ammo to anybody who can pay, the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, governed by Johannes de Graaff gives the first foreign salute to a U.S.-flagged warship, the 14-gun USS Andrea Dorea, captained by Isaiah Robinson; in 1939 U.S. Pres. FDR visits the island to recognize the importance of the First Salute, presenting them with a brass plaque - ride it, wear it, eat it, slice it off, friskies feed the senses? On Nov. 30 2K militiamen from Md. and N.J. reach the end of their enlistment periods and return home; later George Washington calls Md. the Old Line State to honor the Maryland Line, who stay true to the end. On Nov. 30 N.J. DOI signer Richard Stockton (1730-81) is captured by the loyalists and imprisoned in Provost Prison in N.Y., then released next Jan. 3 after six weeks of brutal treatment and signing an oath of obedience to the king, his health ruined and his estate Morven in Princeton, N.J. looted, after which he only lives four years; during the war over 12K rebel POWs die in prison ships and prisons in N.Y. vs. 4,435 killed in combat. On Dec. 5 the secret Phi Beta Kappa Society (emblem: gold watch key) is organized at the Old Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Va. by undergrads of the College of William and Mary after administrators sever the college's ties with Britain and they decide to meet to debate "Whether French politics be more injurious than New England rum" and "Had William the Norman a right to invade England"; branches are established at Yale in 1780 and Harvard in 1781, where they debate whether Adam had a navel and women have equal intellectual capacity to men; it goes non-secret in 1831, admits women in 1875, and gives Vassar the first woman's college charter in 1898; meanwhile Kappa Beta Phi is founded as an alternative, with members wearing a fob tied to a red ribbon around their necks; their emblem consists of a beer stein, Champagne glass, a pointing hand, and five stars; their motto: "Dum vivamus edimus et biberimus" (While we live, we eat and drink".) On Dec. 6 the naval base at Newport, R.I. is captured by the British. On Dec. 7 Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), a friend of George Washington who hates the English for killing his father joins the Am. Rev. army with the Am. rep. in Paris; he is given the rank of maj.-gen., becoming the youngest commissioned regular gen. officer in U.S. Army history (until ?) - the original Luke Skywalker? On Dec. 7-11 after retreating across N.J. to Newark, New Brunswick, Princeton and Trenton with Gen. Cornwallis in pursuit, burning bridges on the Passaic and other rivers as he goes, Washington takes his haggard troops across the Delaware River into Penn., suffering from lack of tents, blankets, food and salt, with 20% having dysentery, and big discipline problems because flogging is not allowed with free Scots, er, Yanks (although prayer meetings and mental hocus pocus are okay); on Dec. 12 Congress runs scared, abandoning Philadelphia for Baltimore; Washington sticks on the W side of the Delaware, awaiting reinforcements, while the British winter in N.J. On Dec. 12 Gen. Charles Lee (oldest U.S. Maj. Gen.) grudgingly marches his men to N.J., and takes quarters at White's Tavern in Basking Ridge, N.J., then denounces Washington in a letter to Gen. Horatio Gates as "a certain great man" who is "most damnably deficient. He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties"; too bad, he's damnably deficient himself, and doesn't realize he's in enemy territory, and on Dec. 13 he is captured in the tavern and taken to New York City, becoming a POW for 18 mo., being threatened with court martial for desertion for forgetting to resign his commission as Lt. Col. in the British Army until several days after accepting his Am. commission, then drafting a plan for a British attack on the U.S. army, which is found in the Howe family archives in 1857, covered-up until then, so that he gets Ft. Lee in N.J. across the Hudson River from Ft. Washington named for him. On Dec. 18 N.C. adopts a Constitution and Declaration of Rights; Col. Richard Caswell (1729-89) becomes gov. #1 (until 1780); N.C. absorbs the Watauga Colony into its new district of Washington. On Dec. 23 Thomas Paine, living with Washington's troops pub. the first of 16 pamphlets (written on a drumhead while serving as Gen. Nathanael Greene's aide-de-camp) titled The American Crisis in the Penn. Journal in Philadelphia, with the soundbyte: "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 it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph"; Paine orders reprints, which arrive at camp, and Gen. Washington orders them delivered to every regiment head to be read to his 5K remaining troops (the enlistments of most of whom are due to expire on Dec. 31) on Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), then prays for a miracle - guess what? They partied hearty all night and planned on sleeping till noon? On Dec. 25 (6 p.m.) knowing the Germans' love for feasting and drinking on Christmas (which they shun as an English custom), after requisitioning heavy open boats used to bring pig iron into Philly, Gen. Washington and 2.6K men march to McKonkey's Ferry, cross the Delaware River in a hailstorm with the help of Col. John Glover and his Marblehead mariners, and land on the N.J. bank at 3 a.m. on Dec. 26, the boats going back to fetch 18 field guns and horses; at 8 a.m. they surprise 1.5K Hessian troops under the command of Col. Johann Gottlieb Rall (b. 1726) outside Trenton, N.J. (at the headwaters of the Delaware River) and score a major V of such stuff as legends are made in the Battle of Trenton, becoming the first U.S. V; 100 Hessians are KIA and 948 POWs are taken (the rest flee), while the halo-wearing rebels suffer only six wounded, incl. Lt. James Monroe (1758-1831), who had dropped out of the College of William and Mary this year to join the 3rd Va. Regiment near New York City and had taken part in the battles of Harlem Heights and White Plains; Rall is shot from his horse and mortally wounded, and formally surrenders to Washington before he croaks on Dec. 28; news of the Big V reaches every colony, raising spirits. On Dec. 27 faced with enlistments expiring on Dec. 31 and an army full of unqualified officers, Congress grants special powers to Gen. Washington for 6 mo. to whip the army into shape; on Dec. 31 he reverses himself on the question of allowing free blacks to join his army; he convinces a number of his men to stay by offering them $10 for six more weeks; he is left with 1.6K troops, and on Dec. 30 leads 1.6K volunteers, Continental Army regulars, and N.J. and Penn. militiamen back into Trenton, where he meets with others that swell his ranks to 6K, compared to 5.5K for British Gen. Cornwallis, then marches N toward Princeton; Col. Henry Knox, whose booming voice was heard over the gale-force winds at the Battle of Trenton is elected artillery chief with the rank of brig. gen., and Washington orders him to establish a U.S. arsenal to manufacture guns and ammo for his army; Knox chooses Springfield, Mass., on the Connecticut River, establishing the Springfield Armory (closes 1967). On Dec. 31 Rhode Island establishes wage and price controls, limiting pay to 70 cents per day for carpenters and 42 cents for tailors. In Dec. 1776 after the fledgling but dubiously legal colony of Transylvania in Ky. (14th U.S. state?) sends a delegation to the Continental Congress and is rebuffed, Va. responds to a petition from Harrodsburg settlers and organizes present-day Kentucky as a county of Va. In 1776 a good harvest in France reduces the price of bread, but the French again abolish internal free trade in grain. In 1776 Delaware forbids further importation of slaves. In 1776 Benjamin Franklin's son-in-law (since 1767) Richard Bache (1737-1811) (husband of his daughter Sarah) succeeds him as postmaster gen. (until 1782) - don't ask which govt. he works for? In 1776 British MP David Hartley Jr. (1732-85) (son of the philosopher) makes the first motion to outlaw slavery in the British colonies, calling it "contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man"; his motion fails; meanwhile John Wilkes (1725-97) introduces the first bill for reform of the British Parliament. In 1776 Chief Cornstalk of the Shawnee signs the First Indian Treaty with the U.S. at Ft. Pitt, agreeing to keep his nation neutral during the Am. Rev. War; too bad, by winter a group led by Blue Jacket (Wehyehpiherhsehnwah) (Weyapiersenway) ()1743-1810) defect and begin attacking white settlers. In 1776 Pierre Lorillard II (1764-1843) inherits his father's snuff and tobacco biz in New York City; when he dies, his obituary contains the first use in the U.S. of the word "millionaire". In 1776 the Pay Scale for the U.S. Navy runs from $60 a mo. for 20-gun captains to $8 for seamen. In 1776 Swiss-born English Methodist leader John William Fletcher (1729-85) (being groomed by John Wesley as his successor) writes a tract decrying the Am. Rev., which George III reads and likes, offering him any "plum" ecclesiastical appointment he desires, to whom Fletcher utters the soundbyte "I want only more grace." After killing a servant of the royal household in a duel and fleeing to Boston, Mass., French army officer Jean-Antoine Le Clerc (Louis Le Clerc Milfort or Milford) (1752-1820) travels to Indian territory E of the Miss. River in modern-day Ala. and makes friends with the Creek Indians, leading them into battle against the rebels during the Am. Rev. War, and marrying Jeannet McGillivray, sister of Creek chief Alexander McGillivray. Yes, Mother? In 1776 Manchester-born Mother Ann Elizbaeth Lee (1736-84) leads nine followers from England to "Immanuel's Land" (America), where they settle in Watervliet, near Albany, N.Y., becoming known as the Shakers, and, when not shaking, becoming good agriculturists and furniture makers (until 1880). Simeon Simon from R.I. (a direct Indian descendant of Pilgrim-loving chief Massasoit) joins the rebel cause, and fights beside Gen. George Washington throughout the Am. Rev. War. In 1776 George Washington quits taking Anglican Communion after the war begins since the head of the church is his enemy King George III; he occasionally takes it in other churches in Morrison, N.J. and elsewhere; his first proclamation to his troops prohibits drunkenness and profanity, with a punishment of 50 lashes for the first offense and 100 for the second; nobody ever has a third offense?; he keeps a Prayer Diary, which is auctioned off at the end of the 19th cent., and is full of gushing statements about God, Providence, Great Craftsman of the Universe, Great Disposer of Human Events, Sacred Scripture and Christ. In 1776 loyalists from Newport, R.I. are exiled near Chepachet ("where rivers meet) in NW R.I. In 1776 the Prince Hall Masons are formed in Boston, Mass. by free black men Prince Hall (1735-1807) et al. Also in 1776 Long Island Quaker minister Elias Hicks (1748-1830) begins preaching tours of the U.S. and Canada, stirring the pot with attacks on slavery and liberal Unitarian leanings, which end up splitting the Quakers by 1827. Also in 1776 Rev. Richard Price (1723-91) pub. the bestseller Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America, for which Congress awards him honorary U.S. citizenship on Oct. 6, 1778. Also in 1776 Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) pub. the pamphlet Remarks, proposing peace terms with the Am. rebels, getting him appointed to a peace commission which goes to Philly in 1778.

By 1777 the British Secret Service, headed by British MP and Board of Trade and Plantations commissioner William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland (1745-1814) is spending almost £200K a year to gather intel. On Jan. 3, 1777 Gen. George Washington's 3K-man army routs the three regiments of Britsh redcoats led by Gen. Cornwallis in the Battle of Princeton, N.J., capturing 200 POWs; "It is a fine fox chase, my boys!" says Washington, who on Jan. 5-6 moves his army into winter quarters at Morristown in the hills of N New Jersey (30 mi. W of New York City), with HQ at Jacob Arnold's tavern on the village green; Ft. Nonsense, an earthwork fortification is built to defend munition factories there. On Jan. 12 Father Junipero Serra founds the Santa Clara de Asis mission in Calif. (#8). On Jan. 15 the people of New Connecticut (later Vermont) declare their independence as the Vermont Repub. (named by Dr. Thomas Young, from French "vert mont" meaning green mountain); on July 2 it abolishes slavery; on July 8 the Constitution of Vermont is adopted at the Old Constitution House tavern in Windsor; it is not admitted to the union until 1791. On Jan. 20 Gen. Washington invites 22-y.-o. artillery Capt. Alexander Hamilton to join his staff as an aide-de-camp; on Mar. 1 Hamilton is promoted to Lt. Col., and being the brainiest person on his staff (nice ass, too?) soon rises from private secy. to virtual chief of staff, becoming Washington's virtual adopted son, writing letters for him and even making decisions in his absence; the Continental army is in the hands of a horny geek boy with peach fuzz on his cheeks? - one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer? On Feb. 1 Don Bernardo de Galvez (1748-86) becomes Spanish gov. of La. (until 1786), and on Apr. 17 he issues a proclamation allowing trade with the U.S.; he goes on to foster intensive Spanish colonization, while the English in West Fla. are busy doing ditto, claiming the area N and W of Lake Pontchartrain. On Feb. 5 Georgia adopts a Ga. constitution. In Feb. "Mad" Anthony Wayne (1745-96) of Penn., known for his crazy tactics becomes a brig. gen. in charge of the Penn. Line. On Mar 13 Congress orders its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the army. On Mar. 25 the U.S. Constitutional Convention officially convenes. On Apr. 13 the Battle of Bound Brook in N.J. sees a rebel garrison surprised and routed by a force of British and Hessians. On Apr. 20 New York adopts a N.Y. constitution written by New York City atty. John Jay (1745-1829) in Kingston, and George Clinton (1739-1812) (son of an Irish immigrant) is sworn in as gov. #1 of N.Y. on July 30 (until Apr. 1, 1795). The turning point of the Am. Rev. War? On Apr. 27 after British ships from Long Island Sound under Gen. William Tryon sail N to Compo Beach in Westport, where troops disembark and march through Bethel to the colonial supply depot of Danbury, Conn., sacking and burning it, the Battle of Ridgefield in W Conn. in the foothills of the Berkshire Mts. sees a 700-man colonial militia force under gen. David Wooster (b. 1710) and brig. gen. Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) take on a larger British force returning to Norwalk and maybe win maybe lose, it depends on whom you talk to, but their stand solidifies rebel feeling New England, after which the Brits never again try landing a ship to attack a colonial stronghold; Wooster is wounded and dies on May 2 after uttering the soundbyte "I am dying but with a strong hope and persuasion that my country will gain her independence"; Arnold becomes a hero even though his horse is shot from under him and his leg is seriously wounded, getting him a promotion to Maj. Gen. after a recommendation by Gen. Washington. In late spring Gen. John Burgoyne, after serving for several mo. under Sir Guy Carleton in Canada wins official approval of his srategy to invade New York from the N and hook-up with CIC Sir William Howe, separating New England from the other colonies and getting even for Bunker Hill, and leads an army of 10K men (half what he requested) S into New York; his personal belongings are dragged along in some thirty carts; misbehaving soldiers are not flogged but made to wear their coats inside-out. In Apr. 19-y.-o. Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (La Fayette) (1757-1834) leaves from the Spanish port of San Sebastian, arriving at Port Royal, S.C. on June 13 to assist the rebels, and reaches New England on July 27, being made a maj.-gen. in the Continental army on July 31; he is accompanied by German-born Baron Johann de Kalb (1721-80), who had been sent to America in 1768 by the French govt. to sound out their feelings vis a vis Britain; he is also made a maj.-gen. On May 19 after screwing up an invasion of British East Fla. and getting into an argument with his superior, Scottish-born 1st Ga. regiment brig. gen. Lachlan McIntosh (1725-1806), English-born DOI signer and Ga. gov. #2 (Mar. 4-May 8) Button Gwinnett (b. 1735) dies of gangrene three days after being wounded in a duel with him, giving him a unique kind of immortality? On May 26 a parish priest in Tome, New Mexico notes in a burial book that he interred 21 Spanish settlers who had been massacred by Comanches; there are 30 more burials next June; the town is known as "town of the broken promise" after Ignacio de Vaca promises his daughter Maria to the son of a Comanche chief, changes his mind, tries to fool the chief with a phony grave, is found out, and gets his town massacred, although the babe Maria marries the chief's son and they live happily ever after? On June 14 the Stars and Stripes is officially adopted by the Continental Congress, with John Adams declaring, "Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation"; on June 14 it is unfurled for the first time at Gen. Washington's HQ in Bound Brook, N.J. In June the Saratoga Campaign, a British attempt to cut New England off from the Middle and Southern States by taking control of the Hudson River Valley begins, with Gen. John Burgoyne leading one 8K man army from St. Johns, Canada down Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, while Col. Barry St. Leger (promoted to brevet brig.-gen.) leads a smaller army from Canada by way of Lake Ontario through the Mohawk Valley; Am. gen. Israel Putnam is appointed cmdr. of the defense of the Hudson highlands; meanwhile Gen. William Howe advances up the Hudson River from New York City, with all three armies converging at Albany; meanwhile "Cowboys" (cow rustlers on the roads E of the Hudson River between British and Am. lines who claim to be Tories), and "Skinners" (Whigs who do likewise) become a problem; the murder of Jane McCrea at Ft. Edward by the British turns many against them, who take up arms against the British. On July 1 Gen. Burgoyne's British troops depart from their base at the Bouquet River, and on July 5-7 occupy Crown Point and recapture Ft. Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, then win minor Vs at the Battle of Hubbardton on July 7 (only Am. Rev. War battle fought in Vt.) and the Battle of Ft. Ann in N.Y. on July 8, chasing the rebels S along the E bank of the Hudson River; when King George III hears about it he proclaims, "I have beat them, beat all the Americans!"; New Yorker Gen. Philip Schuyler is blamed for the loss, and replaced as head of the patriot army's Northern Dept. by "New England's idol" Gen. Horatio Lloyd Gates (1728-1806); the British army now has an open corridor from Canada to push S to New York City, but from Skenesboro on the rebels slow them down in densely forested country to only 1 mi. a day. On July 4 fireworks and music from a Prussian band captured 6 mo. earlier highlight the Independence Day celebration in Philly. On July 8 the frigate USS Hancock is captured by the British ships Rainbow and Flora; the POWs, incl. cabin-boy John Blatchford are taken to Halifax, N.S. On July 23 Gen. Howe takes a large part of his army from New York City by ship to Chesapeake Bay for an attack on Philly, leaving British gen. Sir Henry Clinton in command awaiting reinforcements, causing him to wait until Oct. 3 to move up the Hudson to relieve Burgoyne. On July 26 British Col. Barry St. Leger leaves Oswego on Lake Ontario with 2K loyalists and Indians, and on Aug. 3 sieges Ft. Stanwix at the head of the Mohawk Valley; on Aug. 6 the bloody Battle of Oriskany results as a 1-mi.-long relief column of 800 New York militia under Gen. Nicholas Herkimer (b. 1728) is ambushed 6 mi. from Ft. Stanwix (2 mi. from Oriskany, N.Y.) by 400 loyalist and Indian troops of the King's Royal Regiment of New York under N.Y.-born loyalist Brig. Gen. Sir John Johnson (1741-1830), Col. Barry St. Leger, and Joseph Brant; the long bloody hand-to-hand battle is a push, and after each side suffers 30% casualties the patriots withdraw to their base without relieving the fort; Herkimer is mortally wounded, and sits under a tree directing his troops while smoking a pipe, then dies 10 days later on Aug. 16 after his leg is amputated; despite being oh so risky, it becomes the first engagement of Am. troops under the Stars and Stripes; on Aug. 22 news of another relief force cause the Indians to desert and St. Leger to return to Oswego. On July 30 Gen. Burgoyne occupies Ft. Edward, and on Aug. 11 sends 800 Hessian dragoons and Indians, led by Brunswick dragoon Lt. Col. Friedrich Baum (1727-77) to seize the Am. depot at Bennington, Vt. to seize much-needed supplies; on Aug. 16 the Battle of Bennington (4 mi. NW of Bennington) is a V for the 1.4K-man N.H. militia under Gen. John Stark (1728-1822) (who carry fighting Blue Hen Cocks for entertainment, causing N.H. to become known as the Blue Hen State), and a 2nd British force of loyalists sent by Burgoyne is repulsed by Col. Seth Warner (1743-84) and 350 veteran outlaw Green Mountain Boys (formed to fight N.Y. authority over Vt.); Burgoyne loses 207 killed and wounded plus 600 POWs, vs. Am. casualties of 14 killed and 42 wounded; Stark's brigade is organized and financed by John Langdon (1741-1819) from N.H., who also serves in it; Stark becomes known as the Hero of Bennington, and coins the motto "Live Free or Die". On Aug. 22 with Gen. Benedict Arnold's army approaching, the Brits abandon Ft. Stanwix and return to Canada. On Aug. 16 France declares bankruptcy. Coochy coochy coo, I got a new flag for you? On Sept. 3 the U.S. Stars and Stripes Flag is officially announced, and carried into battle for the first time by a force under Irish-born Gen. William Maxwell (-1798) at the Battle of Cooch's Bridge. America's first 9/11? On Sept. 11 the Battle of Brandywine Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River near Chad's Ford, Penn. (Wilmington, Del.) (25 mi. SW of Philadelphia) is a V for British Gen. William Howe and his 18K troops against the 11K rebels under Gen. George Washington; Lt. James Monroe (1758-1831), who was promoted to maj. on the staff of Gen. William Alexander (until 1778) took part in the battle; after feinting to the center, the Brits attack the Am. right under Gen. John Sullivan, forcing it to fall back, and Washington orders a gen. withdrawal to Chester, Penn., while rear-guard units under Gen. Nathanael Greene cover their rear, slowing Howe down and keeping him from reaching Philadelphia until Sept. 27, causing Congress to flee, moving from town to town just ahead of them; British casualties at Brandywine total 600 vs. 900 rebels killed and 400 taken POW; breech-loading rifle inventor maj. Patrick Ferguson (1744-80) has George Washington in his sights but refuses to pull the trigger, as "it is ungentlemanly to shoot a man in the back of the head". On Sept. 13 Gen. Burgoyne crosses to the W side of the Hudson River with 6K men, and is blocked by a rebel army entrenched on Bemis Heights (10 mi. S of Saratoga and 24 mi. N of Albany), under command of Gen. Horatio Gates, whose army grows from 4K men in Aug. to 11K in Oct. On Sept. 19 the British under Gen. Burgoyne meet the ragtag rebels under Gen. Horatio "Granny" Gates at the First Battle of Saratoga ("beaver place") (ends Oct. 7) in N.Y. (later Schuylerville) at the 15-acre Freeman's Farm, 1 mi. N of the rebel lines at Bemis Heights, and hold their own, but suffer heavy casualties, causing the rebels to declare a big V, which on top of Washington's dumbo moves at Brandywine and Germantown causes the Conway Cabal to begin after up-and-coming lose cannon Irish-born Gen. Thomas Conway (1733-1800) (a former col. in the French army who presented a letter of introduction from Silas Deane to Congress that got him made brig. gen in May, then valiantly led the right flank at Germantown, after which he brazenly went over Washington's head by requesting a promotion to maj. gen. from Congress, which Washington found out about and tried to stop, promoting Baron Johann de Kalb instead, vindicating Conway's opinion of Washington as a ninny) vents his feelings in a letter to Gen. Gates in Oct., hinting that he should replace loser Washington as CIC, and containing the soundbyte "Heaven has been determined to save your Country; or a weak General and bad Coucellors would have ruined it"; too bad, Washington finds out about it after Gates' aide Gen. James Wilkinson gets drunk and spills the beans to a subordinate of his man Gen. William Alexander, causing Washington to fire off an angry letter to Conway, who waffles and claims he was only criticizing his staff, then offers his resignation to Congress on Nov. 14, after which anti-Washington forces in Congress, incl. Dr. Benjamin Rush (who wrote his own letter to Patrick Henry, unsigned), Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Mifflin, and Samuel Adams (who calls Washington a Fabian or Cunctator for always retreating) make him a Maj. Gen. and inspector gen. of the army to boot, reporting to War Board head Gen. Gates independently of Washington, and assign him to Washington's camp, after which he arrives in Valley Forge (W of Philly) on Dec. 29, where he is treated icily, but allowed room to step on his own dick if possible; meanwhile next Jan. 17 the anon. Thoughts of a Freeman begins circulating, containing the soundbyte "The people of America have been guilty of making a man their God"; this is Washington's lowest point, where he pulls every string he's got, and earns Mass. rep. James Lovell's epithet "Gentleman of the Blade", i.e., the kind of sacred cow that his own officers will fight duels over. On Sept. 20 (night) the British, led by Maj. Gen. Lord Charles Grey (1729-1807) remove the flints from their muskets and stage a lightning bayonet strike into Gen. Anthony Wayne's force at the Battle of Paoli Tavern (Paoli Massacre) in modern-day Malvern, Penn.; after some call it a massacre, Wayne requests his own court martial but is acquitted; Grey becomes known as "No Flint Grey", and in 1806 becomes the first Earl Grey. On Sept. 26 the British occupy Philadelphia, causing the rebels to hide the Liberty Bell in Allentown, Penn. (home of the oldest muncipal band in the U.S.?), and Congress to move to York, Penn. on Sept. 30. On Oct. 3 British gen. Sir Henry Clinton's army leaves New York City, moving up the Hudson River and capturing Ft. Clinton and Ft. Montgomery, then returning to New York City, leaving Burgoyne in the lurch. On Oct. 4 the British repulse a nearly-successful Am. attack at the Battle of Germantown, Penn. (NW of Philly) after the Am. right, led by Maj. Gen. John Armstrong Sr. (1717-95), CIC of the Penn. militia (an old friend of Gen. Washington from the French-Indian War) gets held up at Chew House in a fog, and drunk Scottish-born Am. Gen. Adam Stephen (1721-91) orders his troops to fire on Am. Gen. Anthony Wayne's, after which Armstrong issues the soundbyte "A glorious victory fought for and eight-tenths won... mysteriously lost, for to this moment no one man can... give any good reason for the flight"; Stephen is court-martialed and cashiered, and 60-ish Armstrong retires, getting elected to the Continental Congress from 1777-80 and 1787-8, which he is Washington's man; Portuguese-born 6'6" 260 lb. Am. soldier Peter Francisco (1760-1831), "the Va. Giant", "the Va. Hercules" is hospitalized at Valley Forge for two weeks, sharing a room with the Marquis de Lafayette, and becoming friends, with Lafayette getting George Washington to give him a special 5 ft. broadsword. On Oct. 6 the British under Maj. Gen. Sir John Vaughan (1731-95) sack and burn Kingston, capital of N.Y.; it is later rebuilt. On Oct. 7 5K thinning (deserting) British troops under Gen. Burgoyne meet 11K entrenched rebels led by Gen. Horatio Gates at the Battle of Bemis Heights (Second Saratoga) and get their fancy-pants butts kicked; on Oct. 8 in heavy rain Burgoyne's army retreats to Saratoga, N.Y., suffering from exhaustion and starvation, and on Oct. 17 Burgoyne surrenders his surrounded 5K-man army at Saratoga, turning the tide of the war decisively to the damned Yankee rebels; the "convention" allows him to march his army to Boston and ship to England, but Congress later rejects the terms and puts them into prison camps in Va.; Burgoyne gets Am. permission to return to England, where he is lambasted by the press and Parliament; the three Am. commissioners in France are finally able to sign an alliance with France, with Franklin becoming America's first minister to France; King George appeals twice more unsuccessfully to Gen. Amherst to take up his old post as CIC of British forces in North Am., Amherst telling the king in his second audience that it would take a force of 40K men to conquer the rebels, but he continues to advise the govt. on the war at the War Office with his eye on Britain's European enemies. In Oct. the British capture Port Clinton, Penn., and make a heroine of rebel water pitcher pitching Molly Pitcher (Mary Ludwig Hays) (1754-1832), who allegedly fires the last gun. On Nov. 1 John Paul Jones sails for France in the Ranger. On Nov. 1 after the V at the Battle of Saratoga, Congress declares their first nat. Thanksgiving Day, with the soundbyte: "The grateful feeling of their hearts... join the penitent confession of their manifold sins... that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance... and... under the providence of Almighty God... secure for these United States the greatest of all human blessings, independence and peace." On Nov. 10 Chief Cornstalk of the Shawnee, who had visited Ft. Randolph at Point Pleasant, W. Va. to discuss his problems with the Blue Jacket faction is brutally murdered by soldiers angry at the killing of one of their own by unknown Indians, along with his son Elinipsico and two other Shawnees; after Am. leaders bring the "vile assassins" to trial to stop the Shawnees from going on the war path, nobody will testify against them and they are acquitted. On Nov. 15 the Articles of Confederation, drafted by John Dickinson of Del. and James Duane (1733-97) of N.Y. are approved by the Continental Congress in York, Penn., and submitted to the states for ratification, but the states are slow in approving them because of a dispute over western lands; Congress' lack of taxing power under the Articles causes it to resort to the printing press, fueling hyperinflation. On Dec. 17 France recognizes U.S. independence. On Dec. 17-19 Washington's 11K-man army enters winter quarters at Valley Forge, Penn. (18 mi. NW of Philly), where things get so bad in their crude huts that they call it their Winter of Despair; Martha Washington winters with her hubby there, and follows him to Morristown, N.J. the next two winters, running a women's sewing circle for the troops. In Dec. Congress declares a nat. Thanksgiving Day. Ft. Vincennes in Ind. is captured by the British, and renamed Ft. Sackville. New London, Conn.-born Capt. John Butler (1728-96) organizes Butler's Rangers in Canada, consisting of about 700 Seneca and Cayuga Indians and 700 Am. Tory loyalists, leading them in the Saratoga Campaign. Boston-born Am. Rev. War leader and DOI signer Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814) becomes atty. gen. of Mass. (until 1790), followed by Mass. Supreme Court judge in 1790-1804 - always confused with English-born rabble-rouser Tom Paine? The capital of Delaware is moved to Dover to keep it out British hands. The British Navy begins using the Blue Peter as a gen. recall flag that is raised when a ship is ready to leave. Juan Bautista de Anza (1736-88) becomes gov. of New Mexico (until 1787). Bernardo de Galvez (Gálvez) y Madrid (1746-86) becomes Spanish gov. #4 of La. (until 1783), going on to crack down on British smuggling, promote trade with France, Cuba and Yucatan, aid the Am. rebels against the Brits through Irish-born intermediary Oliver Pollock (1737-1823), and reverse the policy of arming Indians to encourage them to kill each other, writing the classic 1797 report "The Vanquishment of the Heathen Consists in Obliging Them to Destroy One Another". Capt. James Cook sees long-board surfers in Tahiti and Oahu and observes that the sport is recreational rather than competitive - he should have realized that from the fact they are all nude? Also in 1777 John Dickinson, the wealthiest farmer and largest slaveowner in Del., who had been instrumental in helping Am. independence but had been in a funk ever since screwing up and refusing to sign the DOI, but had been slowly coming around to the cause, esp. after the redcoats burned down his Fairhill estate near Germantown, decides to free all 37 of his slaves, and is reborn as a delegate to the Continental Congress by 1779.

In 1778 John Adams begins a 10-year series of missions to Europe, becoming the first U.S. minister to the Court of St. James after a hazardous winter voyage (with son John Quincy) dodging British warships; he arrives to find that Franklin has already negotiated a treaty with France, and that he's just expected to be his "virtual clerk", i.e., a "cipher"; he tries to push for the French navy to come to the colonies' aid, but can't speak Frog Talk (French); meanwhile, his wife Abigail suffers from loneliness back in Mass. - you look mahvelous, dahling? On Jan. 2, 1778 Gen. George Washington approves recommending that Rhode Island's troop quota be completed with black slaves, who would be promised their freedom in return for military service. On Jan. 18 Capt. Cook discovers Hawaii, renames it the Sandwich Islands, is taken for a god, then leaves on a quest for the Northwest Passage in the Arctic, recording the first encounter with totem poles in Vancouver Island, calling them "house posts that depicted anthropomorphic beings" - an example of kulturkreis or simultaneous evolution? On Jan. 19 the Conway Cabal reaches its moment of truth when Gen. Horatio Gates and Gen. Thomas Conway make their play before the Continental Congress in York, Penn., only to find that Washington has outfoxed them by sending the Marquis of Lafayette to claim that France is behind him, and trip them up by making them try to hide their original "weak general" letter, which he already gave to them, making them look duplicitous, causing the anti-Washington faction to collapse; Thomas Mifflin resigns as secy. of the War Board, Gates returns to his troops after being chastened, and Conway is shuttled off to a subordinate command in the Hudson Highlands, causing him to resign but continue to badmouth Washington, causing Gen. John Cadwalader (1742-86) (who messed up at the Battle of Trenton, being ordered to reinforce Washington from the S, but couldn't get his artillery over the river, causing him to return to Penn. and leave Washington unsupported, only to be treated warmly after it came out all right, giving him a case of hero worship?) to fight a duel with him on July 4, shooting him in the "lying mouth", causing Conway to believe he's about to die and write a letter of apology to Washington, then recover and high-tail it back to France, where he later joins the losing side in the French Rev. and ends up back in Ireland, as if anybody cares by then. In Jan. Gen. Washington discovers plans for an Am. invasion of Canada, and calls them a "child of folly". On Feb. 6 the U.S. wins official recognition from France, signing the Franco-American Treaty of Alliance in Paris, binding the two nations together "forever against all other powers", becoming the only alliance treaty for the U.S until 1949; Gen. and Baron Jeffrey Amherst, hero of Montreal and husband of "the white pussy" in Kent finally enters the British cabinet as CIC of the British army, then field marshal, insisting that British forces be withdrawn from N. Am. except Canada, and hostilities continued only through a naval blockade; Sir Henry Clinton becomes CIC of British forces in North Am. (until 1782). On Feb. 14 John Paul Jones and French Adm. Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet (Piquet) de la Motte (1720-91) exchange gun salutes in Quiberon Bay, France, becoming the first time that the U.S. Stars and Strips flag is carried to a foreign port, and the first time it is officially recognized by another nation (9-gun salute). German military training to the rescue? On Feb. 23 Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben (1730-94) arrives from Prussia, Germany to train the Am. Continental troops in the midst of their Winter of Despair, uttering the soundbyte "With regard to military discipline, I may safely say that no such thing existed in the Continental Army" before creating an honor guard of 120 soldiers, who go on to train others, teaching them the basic points of training and camp layout that continue to be used to modern times; he becomes a U.S. citizen in 1784 - Forvard march! Licht recht licht recht? Voltaire and Franklin-worshipping reach critical mass simultaneously? In Feb. Benjamin Franklin visits the ailing Voltaire in Paris, and asks him to bless 7-y.-o. Benny Bache for him, which he does in ceremonial fashion by placing his hands on the boy's head and saying, in English, "God and Liberty"; Franklin and Voltaire meet again on Apr. 29 at the Academie Royale, and ostentatiously embrace in the French manner, drawing acclamations and comparisons to Solon and Sophocles; Voltaire dies in Paris on May 30 at age 84. On Mar. 15 Nootka Sound outside modern-day Vancouver, Canada is discovered by Capt. James Cook. On Mar. 19 South Carolina adopts a constitution. In Mar. Congress orders the recruitment of Indians into the Continental Army - the original Washington Redskins? In the spring Rhode Island raises a black regiment by promising slaves their freedom. On Apr. 1 New Orleans businessman Oliver Pollock (1737-1823), financier of rebel operations in the west creates the "$" (dollar sign) symbol from the S-P symbol for peso. On Apr. 7 William Pitt the Elder (b. 1708) collapses during a speech in the House of Lords, intending to give a speech against Am. independence; his son William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) helps carry his dying old man from the chamber; he dies on May 11 - does he take it as an omen? On Apr. 21 Harvard-educated gunpowder manufacturer Samuel Phillips Jr. (1752-1802) founds Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. to inculcate a Puritan Calvinist-flavored education to students of all religious persuasions, as long as "they be able to read English well", and prep them for Yale U.; Josiah Quincy II's son JQ III is one of the first students; in 1781 his uncle John Phillips founds Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., which preps students for Harvard U. In Apr.-May (28 days) John Paul Jones sails from Brest, France in the Ranger, captures the British naval sloop HMS Drake, takes seven prizes and 200 POWs, spikes the guns of the forts at Whitehaven, and raids the estate of the earl of Selkirk on the Scottish coast in an attempt to kidnap him, but he isn't home. In May Ethan Allen, hero of Ticonderoga is released from prison in England in exchange for British Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell (1739-91) of Inervneill (captured June 16, 1776), whose confinement Gen. Washington had called "shocking to humanity". In mid-June learning that a French fleet is sailing to America, where they might trap the British if they stay, the British evacuate Philly for New York city on June 18, and Washington withdraws from Valley Forge the next day, appointing Gen. Benedict Arnold as military gov. of Philadelphia; after several maneuvers by both sides, on June 28 Washington (whose 11K troops have been trained by von Steuben, causing him to be eager to test them) attacks the 15K-man British army under Gen. Sir Henry Clinton at the Battle of Monmouth (Court House) in N.J. (last major battle in the north) in sweltering high-90s heat; Washington orders eccentric English officer Maj. Gen. Charles Lee (his oldest Maj. Gen.) to attack, but instead he retreats directly into Washington and his troops without notifying him, claiming he had been outnumbered 10K to 5.4K, and after finding and cussing Lee out, Washington personally takes charge, rallying them to stand and fight; the British escape the next day after sustaining over 1K casualties vs. 200+ for the patriots; Lee is arrested, then court-martialed in July, losing his command for one year, causing him to begin open attacks on Washington's character; Molly Pitcher gains more fame at Monmouth Court House when she drops her water pitcher and takes her wounded husband's place at a cannon, then is presented by Gen. Nathanael Greene to Gen. Washington, who makes her a sgt. and places her on the list of half-pay officers for life; later a Monument to Molly Pitcher is erected on the Monmouth battlefield (plus one at her hometown of Carlisle, Penn.); Lee unsuccessfully lobbies Washington to use rebel guerrillas to exact punitive retribution on pro-British troops and non-combatants, but Washington prefers to keep the (now co-ed?) army professional and answerable to Congress; after Monmouth, James Monroe is promoted to lt. col. and commissioned to raise a new regiment in Va., where he meets Va. gov. Thomas Jefferson and begins a lifelong friendship. On June 9 after becoming pres. of Yale College (until 1795), Rev. Ezra Stiles frees his slave Newport; after making friends with visiting world-traveller Rabbi Haim Isaac Carigal (1733-77) in Newport, R.I., he goes on to try to force students to study Hebrew (like at Harvard), and gives his first commencement speech on Sept. 1781 in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic; in 1790 after the students balk he gives up and makes it optional. On June 22 N.J. rep. John Hart hosts Gen. Washington's 12K-man army on his farm in N.J., where Washington holds his Council of War in the Hunt House; the troops leave on June 24, and happy Hart dies next May 11 at age 66. On June 28 a British peace offer is rejected - lay down our weapons and have our commander come out and kiss his what? In the summer the rebels under Capt. Leonard Helm (1729-82) occupy Ft. Sackville after the British withdraw to Detroit. On July 3 the Wyoming Massacre (Battle of Wyoming) in the Wyoming Valley of Penn. takes place as 400 Am. settlers are killed at Wintermoot's Fort after they are drawn out of the protection of the fort and ambushed by Tories and Indians led by Tory loyalist Capt. John Butler; the Continental Congress sends a force into the valley next year. On July 10 Louis XVI of France declares war on England in support of the Am. Rev. On July 27 the British fleet under Adm. Augustus Keppel (1725-86) and Adm. Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-96), and the French fleet under Adm. Louis Guillouet, Comte d'Orvilliers (1708-92) and Adm. Luc Urbain de Bouexic (Bouëxic), Comte de Guichen (1712-90) fight to a standoff in the first First Battle of Ushant 100 mi. W of the French island of Ushant in the English Channel off NW France, after which public reaction causes the resignation of Chartres and Keppel. On Aug. 29 the Battle of Rhode Island (Quaker Hill) (Siege of Newport) sees the Continentals under Gen. John Sullivan abandon their siege of Newport, R.I. and withdraw to N Aquidneck Island, causing the British supported by newly-arrived Royal Navy ships to attack them, forcing them to the mainland; the 1st Rhode Island Regiment of Col. Christopher Greene (1737-81), consisting of 225 men incl. 140 black fights in the battle, losing 3 KIA, nine wounded, and 11 MIA. On Aug. 31 the British massacre the Indian Company (Indians in the American army), becoming known as the Stockbridge Massacre. On Sept. 7-18 Shawnee Indians, instigated by the British lay siege to Boonesborough in Ky., and capture Daniel Boone for several mo., during which chief Blackfish adopts him as a son; after hearing of plans to raid Boonesborough again, he escapes to warn them. On Sept. 7 the U.S. signs the first of 370 treaties with the Am. aborigine (Amerindian) tribes, the Delaware; the last is signed in 1868, and in 1871 Congress declares that the U.S. no longer views native tribes as separate nations and will sign no more treaties - except to share casino profits? In Sept. Ben Franklin's estranged son William is released from his captivity in Conn. through a prisoner exchange, and moves to New York City, becoming pres. of the Board of Associated Loyalists. In Oct. Va. passes an Act Prohibiting the Farther Importation of Slaves. On Nov. 2 5-y.-o. Warwick, R.I.-born Frances Slocum (1773-1847) is kidnapped by Lenape Indians in the Wyoming Valley of Penn.; she is renamed Maconaquah ("young bear"), marries a chief of the Miami tribe, has four children, and lives the rest of her life with them near Peru, Ind. The Iroquois Confederation (Six Nations) (Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca) sides with England and attacks in Penn. and N.Y., hoping to preserve a permanent Indian nation between the British Empire and the U.S.; only the Oneidas and some Tuscaroras go for the rebel side; on Nov. 11 Iroquois Indians led by Tory Capt. John Butler and Mohawk chief (British col.) Joseph Brant (1742-1807) (who attended the Indian Charity School in Lebanon, Conn. in 1761 with Conn. clergyman's son Samuel Kirkland, and lives a double life as a colonial gentleman and Episcopal missionary among the Mohawks) massacre the 47 inhabitants of Cherry Valley, N.Y. with tomahawks; if anybody lives, Brant becomes known for humanity and preventing torture? In Nov. Capt. Cook returns to Hawaii after failing to find the Northwest Passage, and first spots the Hawaiian island of Molokai; Kalaniopu'u (1729-82), king of the big island of Hawaii sends his army under warrior-gen. Kamehameha (1737-1819) to Lana'i (Lanai), under the rule of Maui, and they massacre 3K on the island, which gives the island its name, meaning "day of conquest". In Oct.-Nov. Alexander Hamilton, under the pseudonym Publius castigates future U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Md. congressman Samuel Chase for scheming to profit from the arriving French's fleet's need for flour by cornering the market and doubling the prices - guilt overrated? In Nov. British Gen. Sir Henry Clinton dispatches units from N.Y. to N.J. under Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell (1739-91) to join Huguenot Brig. (later maj.) Gen. Augustin Prevost (1723-86) and his Florida Rangers in attacking Savannah (capital of Georgia) as part of a grand plan to take the city and then roll N while gathering support from the perceived mass of sleeping Tory loyalists in the countryside; on Dec. 29 British troops capture Savannah and begin a parry-and-thrust drive N towards Charleston. On Dec. 17 the British under Irish-born Lt. Col. Henry Hamilton (1734-96) return and recapture Ft. Sackville (until 1779) - the fort that loves to be sacked? On Dec. 23 Alexander Hamilton acts as the second for (his gay lover?) col. John Laurens (1754-82) of S.C. in a duel with court-martialed Washington-slandering gen. Charles Lee (d. 1782); they call it off after Laurens wounds Lee in the right side, and Lee is released from duty on Jan. 10, 1780, soon dying of TB. The forces of Nguyen Anh recapture Saigon from the Tay Son brothers (until 1781). Lord North sends a commission, headed by Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825), and incl. William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland to attempt a reconciliation with the Am. colonies, but it accomplishes diddly squat. Am. frontiersman ("Conqueror of the Old Northwest") ("Hannibal of the West") ("Washington of the West") George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) leads soldiers down the Ohio to take the Illinois country from the British. Am. Gen. John Sullivan begins a siege of Newport, R.I. (until 1779). Va.-born William Lee (1739-95) is dispatched by the Continental Congress to Vienna to seek recognition; too bad, Maria Theresa refuses him an audience, and bans all trade between the Austrian Netherlands and the "rebel colonies" - the original girly men? Thomas Paine is appointed secy. of the committee of foreign affairs by the Continental Congress (until 1779). A funeral of a British officer in Christ Church in Cambridge, Mass. (known for its Tory congregation) causes an enraged Yankee mob to wreck its interior and get it shut down for the rest of the Am. Rev. London-born Sir George Saville, 8th Baronet (1726-84) introduces the Relief Act to the Irish Parliament, removing disabilities of Roman Catholics and Presbyterians (mainly in Ulster) in holding office - now hungry Catholics can join the British army and fight in America? The Liberty Bell is taken out of hiding and replaced in Independence Hall. Gen. George Washington orders a 1.7K-ft. iron chain weighing 275 lbs. per 3.5-in. link forged by 17 blacksmiths and strung across the Hudson River at West Point, N.Y. to hinder the Brits. Pluckemin Continental Artillery Cantonment on the W side of Second Watchung Mt. N of the village of Pluckemin, N.J. is founded as the Continental Army's winter cantonment, becoming the first U.S. military academy before West Point in 1802. Welsh buccaneer Robert Edwards (1716-88) allegedly leases 77 acres of prime land (now worth umpteen billion bucks) on Manhattan Island (incl. modern-day Wall St. to Trinity Church) on a 99-year basis; he dies in a shipwreck and his heirs can't get the land back, but here's a big chance for smart lawyers? Juan Bautista de Anza leads a punitive expedition across new Mexico and Colorado against the Comanches, killing Comanche chief Cuerno Verde (Sp. "green horn") (known for green tinted horns in his headdress) on Sept. 3, 1779 at what is later called Rye, Colo. King Carlos III of Spain sends Spanish settlers from the Canary Islands to La., where they settle in St. Bernard Parish and become known as Islenos (Isleños) or Spanish Cajuns. Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid founds Galvez, La. (originally Galvez Town) 10 mi. SE of Baton Rouge. The British garrison in New York (which holds the pay chests of all British forces in America), feeling threatened by Washington's army, uses a detachment of the Royal Engineers from Halifax, Nova Scotia to dig the Money Pit on Oak Island, but later recovers the chests when the danger is past?

In 1779 there were 21 regiments of loyalists (6.5K-8K men) in the British army in America. On Jan. 29, 1779 a Scottish Highlander regiment under Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell (d. 1791) captures Augusta, Ga., but on Feb. 13 they evacuate under rebel pressure, still threatening S.C., home to Charleston, the largest port of entry for slaves arriving in North Am., who reject a plea by John Laurens, son of former Continental Congress pres. Henry Laurens to recruit two to four black battalions for the Continental Army; John Laurens turns to military service in S.C. under Brig. Gen. William Moultrie. On Feb. 14 Capt. James Cook (b. 1728) is murdered in Kealakekua Bay (which he first sighted on Jan. 17, and performed the first Christian service on the islands on Jan. 28 for a dead crew member) on the W (Kona or dry) side of Hawaii Island by Hawaiian natives in a conflict over a stolen boat after he gets cooky, er, cocky and holds chief Kalani'opu'u (1729-82) hostage; if only he could swim?; the survivors return to England via the East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope; Kalani'opu'u's son Kiwala'o (1760-82) becomes king of Hawaii (until July 1782), and his nephew Kamehameha I (1782-1819) becomes guardian of the god of war Kukailimoku. On Feb. 14 (Sun.) Irish-born British Tory Col. James Boyd of Raeburn Creek, S.C. and 700 British and loyalist soldiers are defeated by 350 patriots led by Penn.-born Col. Andrew Pickens (1739-1837) of S.C. and Lt. Col. Elijah Clarke (1742-99) of Ga. at the Battle of Kettle Creek in Wilkes County (EC Ga.); Boyd is killed, and 150 loyalists are taken POW. On Feb. 25 a small Am. force under Col. George Rogers Clark, after using excess company flags to fool the Brits into thinking they have more than 500 troops recaptures Ft. Sackville in Ind. from British Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton after a 2-day siege, and this time they keep it. On Feb. 25 under orders of Congress, Gen. George Washington sends an expedition led by Gen. John Sullivan (1740-95) and Gen. James Clinton (1733-1812) to kick the butts of Butler's Tory Rangers and their Indian (Seneca) allies, which they do on Aug. 29 in the Battle of Newtown near modern-day Elmira, N.Y. after Sullivan first dams the Susquehanna River at Lake Otsego, lets the lake rise, then destroys the dam, flooding the area downstream; they then attack the Iroquois Confederation; it takes most of the year but they are defeated and many Iroquois villages devastated, causing Joseph Brant to ignore the later U.S.-Iroquois peace treaties and continue frontier raids after the end of the Am. Rev. War; in Nov. Sullivan resigns from the Am. army and becomes a member of the Continental Congress from N.H. (1780-1), N.H. atty. gen. from 1782-6, pres. of N.H. from 1786-9, and U.S. district judge of N.H. in 1789-95; the Seneca villages of Little Beard's Town, Big Tree and Squakie Hill are wiped out, then resettled by whites in 1789 as Leicester, N.Y. (originally Leister). In Feb. Benjamin Franklin becomes sole U.S. minister to France. On Mar. 12 the city of Chicago, Ill. (Ill. Tribe word for "striped skunk", meaning wild leek) (modern-day pop. 2.7M/9.5M) is founded by Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable (DuSable) (1745-1818), a black fur trapper from Haiti, who sets up a trading post in modern-day Pioneer Court on the NE side of Michigan Ave. Bridge; it is incorporated as a town on Aug. 12, 1833, and as a city on Mar. 4, 1837; on Oct. 26, 1968 the state of Ill. recognizes du Sable as the father of Chicago; in 1957 the DuSable Museum of African-Am. History is founded at 57th St. S at Cottage Grove in Chicago. On Mar. 20 Gen. Washington writes a wishy-washy letter on the subject of recruiting a black regiment for the defense of the South, and South Carolina and Georgia reject Congress' recommendation to do so. On Mar. 20 Boston, Mass., USMC Capt. William Jones advertises for "a few good men" to enlist in the Corps for naval duty, creating a slogan. In May the southern British army's penchant for pillaging plantation houses cause them to delay so long that when they reach Charleston Neck they encounter impregnable defenses, and are almost entrapped by Gen. Benjamin Lincoln's Continental army. The Brits struggle to encircle the Am. rebels from the south but are stymied by the Spanish? On June 21 Charles III of Spain declares war on Britain after entering into an alliance with France in Feb., then enters the Am. Rev. War on the rebel side on June 23; Spanish gov. of Fla. (since 1777) Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid lucks out and intercepts a secret letter from George III dated June 25 to Scottish-born British Maj. Gen. John Campbell of Strachur (1727-1806) in Pensacola, Fla. (who was sent there last Oct. from New York by Lord Germain), telling him to attack New Orleans, allowing Galvez to beat him to the punch, officially recognize the U.S. on Aug. 19 and seize the new British frontier post of Ft. Bute NW of New Orleans at Manchac on Sept. 7 despite a hurricane that sinks his fleet in New Orleans on Aug. 15. In June British Gen. Sir Henry Clinton (last British gov. of Va.) promises freedom to runaway American slaves defecting to the British side and serving the crown, spurring tens of thousands to escape to serve King George III, shaming the rebels, whose many efforts to do the same have all been ix-nayed by the cracker slaveholders? On July 3 the French capture St. Vincent and Grenada in the West Indies from the British (until 1783). On July 4 (Independence Day) a special thanksgiving service is held by the Irish at Old Saint Mary's Church in Philadelphia, Penn., attended by the pres. and members of the Continental Congress, and the heads of the U.S. army and navy, becoming the first public religious commemoration of the DOI. On July 16 Am. troops under Gen. Anthony Wayne take the British fortification at Stony Point, N.Y. overlooking the Hudson River in a night bayonet attack, and getting even for Paoli. On July 22 royal gov. James Wright returns to Savannah to restore English rule in Georgia. In July-Aug. the Siege of Penobscot Bay in Castine, Maine becomes the worst naval defeat in U.S. naval history (until Dec. 8, 1941), with the rebels losing 474 killed, wounded or captured out of 1K, vs. only 13 killed or wounded in the 600-man British force under Col. Francis McLean; Paul Revere is accused of cowardice but acquitted; the only successful part is the retreat, organized by Gen. Peleg Wadsworth (1748-1829), maternal grandfather of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b. 1807) - saving his silver character from being tarnished? On Aug. 2 John Adams returns to Mass., having not seen his wife Abigail for 1.5 years; he is asked to draft the Mass. constitution. On Aug. 18-19 Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee (1756-1818), future father of Gen. Robert E. Lee (b. 1807) brilliantly captures Paulus Hook (later called Jersey City), the last British outpost in New Jersey, and is promoted to lt. col. The Battle of the Bonhomme Richard and Serapis makes John Paul Jones a star? John Paul Jones is promoted to commodore in command of a mixed fleet of five French and Am. vessels, incl. the 14-y.-o. 34-gun refitted decrepit French East Indiaman Duc de Duras, which he renames the Bonhomme Richard, after Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac; on Aug. 14 he sails with a largely foreign crew (incl. 140 French marines) to raid English shipping, accompanied by the Am. frigate Alliance (with a French capt. and Anglo-Am. crew), the French frigate Pallas, and the French brig Vengeance, sailing up the W coast of Ireland, around Scotland, and down England's E coast, taking 17 ships; on Sept. 23 he engages a fleet of 41 British merchantmen convoyed by the 44-gun British frigate HMS Serapis and the 20-gun sloop HMS Countess of Scarborough in the North Sea off Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast; after the Serapis gets the best of him with its guns, Jones grapples his ship to her stem to stern, and they continue to fight into the night under a full moon in one of the bloodiest naval battles to date (3.5 hours); allegedly Capt. Sir Richard Pearson (1731-1806) calls out to Jones, asking for surrender, and Jones shouts his immortal reply "I have not yet begun to fight" (how many times have you heard the words, "Variation on a theme"?); at 10:30 p.m. an explosion in in the Serapis forces its capt. to strike his colors, and Jones wins the battle, but his ship is in bad shape, forcing him and his squadron to make for the Continent against contrary winds; the Bonhomme Richard sinks on Sept. 25, and Jones transfers to the Serapis, then reaches Texel, Holland on Oct. 3, a guaranteed Am. hero, which enhances the prestige of the fledgling U.S. of A. and gets him a gold-mounted sword and Order of Military Merit from Louis XVI, plus a gold medal from the Continental Congress, which declares its 2nd nat. day of Thanksgiving - and a pardon for all income taxes in arrears, plus a discharge of his debts and a good looking young wench? On Sept. 1 the French fleet arrives in America and begins an encirclement of Savannah, Ga. On Sept. 1 Congress stops issuing paper money, calling on the states on Oct. 6 to provide 15 million dollars each month to pay for the war effort; when that doesn't work a system of requisitioning supplies from each state is instituted beginning Dec. 11. On Sept. 21 after a British fleet of seven ships and 500 men in Pensacola under gen. John Campbell of Strachur decides not to sail in order to protect the E side of the province of West Fla., the Spanish under Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid defeat the Brits at the Battle of Baton Rouge, followed on Oct. 5 by the Battle of Natchez, ensuring that the Mississippi River will be open to the Am. rebel cause, and going on to drive British troops out of W West Fla. by the end of the year. On Oct. 7 British Lt. Gen. Henry Clinton orders an evacuation of Newport, R.I. (held since 1776). On Oct. 11 Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski (b. 1745), "father of the American cavalry" dies two days after being mortally wounded while fighting for the Am. side at the Battle of Savannah after slave Quamino Dolly leads British troops through the swamps to attack it; on Oct. 19 the Am. and French forces withdraw. On Nov. 11 Thomas Jefferson proclaims a Day of Thanksgiving, with the soundbyte: "A day of public and solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for his mercies, and of Prayer, for the continuance of his favour... That He would go forth with our hosts and crown our arms with victory; That He would grant to His church, the plentiful effusions of Divine Grace, and pour out His Holy Spirit on all Ministers of the Gospel; That He would bless and prosper the means of education, and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth..." On Nov. 12 14 slaves petition the N.H. legislature for their freedom; on June 7, 2013 the gov. of N.H. signs a bill granting them posth. emancipation. On Nov. 13 John Adams sails to Holland along with his young sons John Quincy and Charles, and Atlantic storms plus a leaky vessel causes a forced landing at Ferrol, Spain, after which they cross the Pyrenees in a carriage. On Dec. 1 Washington's army winters in Jockey Hollow near Morristown, N.J., and faces a miserable winter (worst so far in North Am. this cent.); Washington and his staff occupy the Ford Mansion (white with green trim) (built 1772-4) of the late Judge Jacob Ford; New York Harbor is so deeply frozen that the Brits can move heavy artillery across it. On Dec. 26 British Gen. Henry Clinton sets sail from New York City to invade Charleston, S.C. - setting sail from New York City becomes his signature shot? Thomas Jefferson becomes gov. of Virginia (ends 1781), and Richmond is made the state capitol because of its central location. Thomas Paine is dismissed by Congress as secy. of the committee of foreign affairs for divulging state secrets, and is appointed clerk of the Penn. legislature. Am. Gen. Israel Putnam suffers a paralyzing stroke, and becomes homebound for the rest of his life (until 1790) - no more put in Old Put? 38-y.-o. widower Gen. Benedict Arnold (b. 1741) marries 19-y.-o. sweet young thing Margaret "Peggy" Shippen (1760-1804), member of a prominent royalist family, and begins living beyond his means, blaming his troubles on Washington's refusal to promote him faster and get him out of backwater Philly? Continental soldiers now have their regulation uniforms to show the Brits that they got game. In 1779 the city of Nashville, Tenn. on the Cumberland River (Davidson County) (modern pop. 684K/1.8M) is founded, named after Brig. Gen. Francis Nash (1742-77), who was mortally wounded in the Oct. 4, 1777 Battle of Germantown. In 1779 the Universalist Church of Am. is organized in Gloucester, Mass. by John Murray. In 1779 the first law school in the U.S. is founded at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Va. Also in 1779 the first cocktail is invented by a tavern keeper in Elmsford, N.Y., who ornaments each rum-filled glass with rooster feathers after seeing barmaid Elizabeth "Betsy" Flanagan decorate her bar at Halls Corner with discarded tail feathers from poultry that has been roasted and served to patrons, and a drunken guest demand that she bring him "a glass of those cocktails", causing her to serve him a mixed rum drink garnished with one of the feathers - she invents it, he gets the credit? Also in 1779 Thomas Jefferson stinks himself up by giving a lecture on what he thinks is a primitive feline, which turns out to be a ground sloth. Also in 1779 Am. artist in the Penn. militia Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) paints a full-length Portrait of George Washington (1779-81), showing the big V at Princeton in the background is shipped to Spain to gain support for the American cause, staying there for a cent.; in 2006 it is auctioned by Christie's for $10M-$15M.

In 1779 Am. brain man Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) pub. The Morals of Chess, on how it develops foresight, circumspection, perseverance, and sportsmanship; "[Chess] is not merely an idle amusement; life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and evil events that are in some degree the effects of prudence or the want of it"; in his memoirs Thomas Jefferson says that Franklin once checkmated the Duchess of Bourbon, who complained "We do not take kings so", to which he replied "We do in America".

Country	Leader	From	To
Britain	George III (1738-1820)	Oct. 25, 1760	Jan. 29, 1820
France	Louis XVI (1754-93)	June 11, 1774	Jan. 21, 1793
Spain	Charles III (1716-88)	Aug. 10, 1759	Dec. 14, 1788
Austria	HRE Joseph II (1741-90)	1765	Feb. 20, 1790
Russia	Tsar Catherine II the Great (1729-96)	July 9, 1762	Nov. 17, 1796
Prussia	Frederick II the Great (1712-86)	May 31, 1740	Aug. 17, 1786
Sweden	Gustavus III (1746-92)	Feb. 12, 1771	Mar. 29, 1792
Poland-Lithuania	Stanislaus II August Poniatowski (1732-98)	Nov. 25, 1764	Nov. 22, 1795
Papacy	Pope Pius VI (1717-99)	Feb. 15, 1775	Aug. 29, 1799
Turkey	Sultan Abdul Hamid I (1725-89)	Jan. 21, 1774	Apr. 7, 1789

In 1780 the pop. of the Am. colonies is 2.7M; Catholic pop. of England: 70K. Around 1780 the Age of Heroic Medicine in Europe and the U.S. begins (ends 1850), in which the patient has to become a hero to endure bloodletting, forced vomiting, sweating, blistering, and intestinal purging via calomel. On Jan. 5, 1780 as his army at Morristown starves and freezes in log huts, mutinying and deserting in large numbers, Gen. Washington ("the man on his knees when the Congress goes to prayer") writes Congress complaining of the lack of supplies, but the weak Articles of Confederation make it impossible to raise taxes - so what can they do, I ask you? On Feb. 15 a British force under Gen. Goddard captures Ahmedabad, followed on Nov. 13-Dec. 11 by Bassein; on Nov. 13 another British force of 6K under Gen. Fraser defeats the Marathas and captures Deeg; on Aug. 3 another British force of 2K (mostly sepoys) under Capt. Popham surprises and captures Gwalior in C India. On Mar. 1 Penn. becomes the first U.S. state to make an abolition pledge with an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery - have to get my money out of them first? On Mar. 2 Mass. adopts a 1780 Mass. Constitution written by John Adams (1735-1826), which becomes the model for the U.S. federal constitution. On Mar. 14 2K Spanish troops under La. gov. Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid capture Ft. Charlotte from 287 troops under Capt. Elias Durnford (1739-94), causing Mobile to surrender just as Gen. John Campbell of Strachur, slowed down by bad weather is about to arrive with reinforcements, causing him to return to Pensacola on Mar. 18, which is all that is left of the British province of West Fla. On Mar. 26 the British Gazette and Sunday Monitor begins pub. in London (until 1805), becoming the first Sunday newspaper in Britain - extra, extra, read all about it, we're not losing but not winning in America? In Mar. to counter hyperinflation Congress offers to exchange one of its new dollars for forty of the old ones, which wipes out the savings of many Americans, and gives rise to the saying "not worth a Continental". On May 5 the Am. Academy of Arts and Sciences is founded in Boston, Mass. by John Adams (1735-1826), James Bowdoin II et al. to encourage scientific work, with membership limited to 1500 Fellows and 190 Foreign Honorary Members elected for eminence; in 1955 it begins pub. the quarterly journal Daedalus and awards the Rumford Medal. Old English is the fastest way to clean down under? On May 12 after a 6-week siege, bringing new land and sea forces to join and bottle up Charleston Peninsula, the British under Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton capture 5.5K Continental troops under Gen. Benjamin Lincoln (1733-1810) at the Battle (Siege) of Charleston (begun Mar. 29), becoming the largest Am. army to surrender since Saratoga, and the greatest single Am. loss of the war; former brig. gen. Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805), lt.-gov. of S.C. signs the surrender document, and is released on parole by Clinton, then a few weeks later is arrested by order of Lord Cornwallis and imprisoned for 10 mo. at Ft. Augustine; Brig. Gen. William Moultrie is captured, then exchanged in 1782 and promoted to Maj. Gen., going on to become gov. of S.C. after the war (1785-7, 1792-4); after Charleston falls, 25K blacks (25% of the total), plus a third of Ga. blacks seek their freedom with the Brits; S.C.-born Lt. Col. Francis Marion (1732-95) escapes and forms a band of guerrillas, and is nicknamed the Swamp Fox by British Gen. Banastre (Bannister) "Bloody Ban" "the Green Dragoon" "the Butcher" Tarleton (1754-1833), who becomes known for giving no quarter to the enemy ("Tarleton's quarter") after the May 29 Battle (Massacre) of Waxhaws, which begins when Tarleton's horse falls and traps him, and his troops go beserk; Congress goes against Gen. Washington's advice and dispatches Saratoga hero Horatio Gates from Hillsborough, N.C. to take command in the South. On May 19 a mysterious darkness envelops much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon; the cause has never been determined? - one drink ain't enough Jack you better make it three? On June 7 the HMS Enterprise (Enterprize) (commissioned Apr. 1775) is anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar when six drifting British vessels approach, and their crews set them on fire, causing Capt. Patrick Leslie to sink them before the waiting Spanish can get them. In June the British East India Co. ship Princess Royal lands at Bengkulu on Sumatra with Am. rebel POWs, who are sent to Ft. Marlboro to be trained as British soldiers to take Sumatra from the Dutch, which they do next year after Holland joins the armed neutrality against Britain. On July 10 French regulars under French marshal Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807) arrive in R.I. to help Gen. Washington at Yorktown, placing themselves wholly under his command - that must have been hard? On Aug. 16 after Congress ignores Gen. Washington's pleas that the so-called Hero of Saratoga is not up to snuff, the Battle of Camden 5 mi. N of Camden, S.C. is a V for the British under gen. Charles Earl Cornwallis (1738-1805) and Gen. Sir Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833), wh surprises Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates' force and routs them all the way back to Hillsborough, causing his "Northern laurels to turn to Southern willows" as Gates gallops 60 mi. to safety in Charlotte, N.C., stinking himself up and ending his career although he skirts a court martial; the patriots lose 900 casualties and 1K POWs, vs. 68 KIA, 245 wounded, and 11 missing for Cornwallis; Gates' Bavarian-born 2nd-in-command Gen. Johann von Robais, Baron de Kalb (b. 1721) is wounded and captured by the Brits, and dies on Aug. 19; Cornwallis then invades N.C., while Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Greene is given control over what is left of the rebel Southern army. On Aug. 24 Louis XVI of France abolishes the use of torture to obtain confessions. In Aug. after the exec. council of Penn., led by Penn. gov. (1781-81) Joseph Reed (1741-85) (known for his lusty prosecution of loyalists) has Gen. Benedict Arnold court-martialed for abuse of military authority and favoritism to Tories, and he is sentenced to be reprimanded by Gen. Washington, who takes his side and softens it as much as possible, Washington moves him out of Philly, appointing him as cmdr. of West Point; too bad, instead of making Arnold it breaks him, and he begins secret negotiations with the British to surrender his post, meeting with British Maj. John Andre at midnight on Sept. 21 and demanding £20K. On Sept. 9 the Brits, thinking they have control of Ga. and S.C. invade N.C. under Lord Cornwallis, reaching Charlotte on Sept. 26; meanwhile on Sept. 26 hundreds of feisty buckskin-clad sharpshooting backwoodsmen assemble at Ft. Watauga on the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in Tenn. and form a milita under Col. John Sevier (1745-1815) and Col. Isaac Shelby (1750-1826), then cross the Appalachians at Roan Mt. to join the regrouping Southern rebels under cols. Elijah Clarke (1742-99) and Charles McDowell (1743-1815), becoming known as the "overmountain men". On Sept. 22 the first recorded lynching, in Pittsylvania County, Va. is named for Capt. William Lynch (1742-1820), who terrorizes British loyalists with their own Anglo-Saxon Lex Talionis? Speaking of lynchings? On Sept. 23 West Point cmdr. Gen. Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), hero of Saratoga is discovered to be a traitor, with plans to surrender West Point to the British after his British contact Maj. John Andre (André) (b. 1750) (adjutant gen. of English forces in Am., and aide of Sir Henry Clinton since 1778) is captured by the Americans on Sept. 23 near Tarrytown in civilian clothes, with papers hidden in his boots (plans of West Point) implicating Arnold; British spy Ann Bates is found to be passing master-boots, er, messages between them; Arnold escapes on the British sloop Vulture off Teller's Point on the Hudson River after the news has to be sent directly to West Point because Washington has just arrived, tipping him off; Andre is taken to Washington's HQ at Tappan, N.Y. and hanged as a spy on Oct. 2 after unsuccessfully begging to be shot like a soldier rather than hanged like a dog, er, thief, his last words being, "It will be but a momentary pang"; Arnold's Tory half-his-age 2nd wife (since 1779) Margaret "Peggy" Shippen (1760-1804), who had been hoping to become part of the British aristocracy by making Benny Wenny live beyond his means put him up to it and is the real traitor? It's William Wallace Time? Feisty Scottish freedom fighters fight for their "free-ee-ee-dom" against the stankin' English again on the Am. side of the Pond? On Oct. 7 after 1K loyalist militia and 100 British provincial rangers under British cmdr. Maj. Patrick Ferguson (b. 1744) (who made the mistake of threatening the rebels to lay down their arms or he would "lay waste to their country with fire and sword") are chased by 900 pissed-off overmountain men towards Cornwallis' main body at Charlotte until they are forced to stand and fight, the Battle of King's Mountain near Blacksburg, York County, S.C. (1.5 mi. S of the N.C. border) is a V for the rebels, becoming "the turning point of the American Revolution" (Theodore Roosevelt); Ferguson is killed, and his Tory militiamen slaughtered, with 119 killed, 123 wounded, and 664 taken POW, vs. 28 rebels killed, incl. rebel cmdr. Col. James Williams (b. 1740), and 62 wounded; meanwhile Gen. Thomas "the Gamecock" Sumter (1734-1832) (later the last surviving officer of the Am. Rev. War) emboldens small farmers to join his guerrilla band - thank you very much, play ball? On Oct. 18 to celebrate the V over Benedict Arnold, Congress declares its 3rd nat. day of Thanksgiving. In Nov. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln is exchanged for British Maj. Gen. William Phillips (1731-81), and soon becomes Washington's 2nd in command On Nov. 29 empress (since Oct. 20, 1749) Maria Theresa (b. 1717) dies after reigning 40 years and 40 days, and her son Joseph II (1741-90) succeeds to the imperial (Austrian) throne as HRE. On Dec. 4 at the Battle of Rugeley's Mills in Clermont, S.C., 6' Va.-born cavalry Col. William Washington (1752-1810) (2nd cousin of George Washington) attacks a fortified log barn with 107 loyalists led by Col. Henry Rugeley inside; when the patriots' small arms prove ineffective, Washington cuts "Quaker guns" (logs resembling cannon) and tricks the loyalists into giving up before he blows them to splinters. On Dec. 14 Alexander Hamilton weds fair maid Elizabeth Schuyler (1757-1854), daughter of wealthy patriot Gen. Philip Schuyler of Albany, N.Y.; he courted her in the 1760 home of Dr. Jabez Campfield (1737-1821) in Morristown, N.J. In Dec. after Congress chooses Gen. Nathanael Greene (1742-86), the "fighting Quaker" of R.I. as the new cmdr. of the Southern theater, he arrives in Charlotte, The Brits under N.Y.-born loyalist Sir John Johnson (1741-1830), assisted by what's left of Capt. John Butler and his Butler's Rangers raid Mohawk River Valley settlements. Francis Dana (1743-1811) of Mass. is appointed U.S. minister to Russia, and after he fails to gain recognition he returns to the U.S. in 1783, ending up as the chief justice of the Mass. Supreme Court in 1791. In 1780 21-y.-o. William Wilberforce (1759-1833) is elected to Parliament, silencing chuckles about his 4'11" hunchback frame with his deep religiousness and eloquent oratory, which makes him seem a giant; after a tour of England during which case he reads the Bible regularly convinces him that slavery is wrong, he devotes his life to ending it, even though virtually every businessman in England makes some income from it; each year he makes a motion to end slavery, which is handily defeated despite his eloquent and moving speeches. In 1780 Washington, Ga. becomes the first U.S. town named after George Washington. In 1780 settlers (13 families) brought by Col. George Rogers Clark in 1778 are joined by more settlers, founding a settlement at the "falls of the Ohio", which is named Louisville (Ky.) after Louis XVI of France (modern pop. 375K/850K); Thomas Jefferson signs the town charter. Also in 1780 William Pitt the Younger (b. 1759) enters the House of Commons. In 1780 Bookish James Madison of Va., son of the largest slaveholder in Orange County becomes the youngest member of the Continental Congress. In 1780 Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) of Salem, Mass., who rose from army col. in 1776 to adjutant gen. in 1777 becomes Am. quartermaster gen. (until 1785) and member of the board of war. In 1780 the Continental Congress establishes a court of appeals. In 1780 John Adams returns to France, but Benjamin Franklin helps get him dismissed as commissioner, telling Congress that Adams thinks "that America has been too free in expressions of gratitude to France; for that she is more obliged to us than we to her"; by the end of the year the U.S. is desperately in need of money to finance the war, and Adams travels alone and unannounced to Holland to seek a loan, pounding the streets knocking on doors for the next year. Also in 1780 Baron Adolf von Knigge (1752-96) joins Adam Weishaupt's Bavarian Illuminati, and gives them mucho publicity, raising their membership to 2K, but quits in 1784 after Jesuit-hating Weishaput accuses him of working for the Jesuits.

On Jan. 1, 1781 after another harsh winter and supply shortages, the Penn. Line of the Continental Army, believing its enlistments have been fulfilled riots, kills three officers, and marches to Morristown, N.J., causing Congress to send loyalist-persecuting Penn. gov. Joseph Reed to negotiate with them, getting 1,250 of them discharged by the end of the mo.; too bad, the troops in N.J. see their chance and follow suit later in Jan., but this time Gen. Washington steps in, puts down the revolt and executes some leaders by early Feb.; the whole affair causes some states to allocate more funds to pay troops. The original "I'll be baaack" Arnold? On Jan. 5 a British naval expedition led by British brig. gen. Benedict Arnold (commissioned by Sir Henry Clinton) burns Richmond, Va., almost capturing Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), who virtually abdicates as gov. of Va. and returns to Monticello. On Jan. 5 the British surrender Ft. San Juan in Nicaragua to the Spanish. On Jan. 17 after Gen. Nathanael Greene sends Col. Daniel Morgan (1736-1802) with 700 men on a sweep W of Cornwallis' HQ at Winnsboro, S.C., and the British under Gen. Banastre Tarleton catch him and force a fight, but Tarleton sends his men in prematurely, the Battle of Cowpens sees Tarleton lose 110 KIA and 700 POWs; the British under Cornwallis advance back into N.C. as Col. Daniel Morgan's army links up with Gen. Nathanael Greene's army at Guilford Courthouse (now Greensboro) and then retreats; on Feb. 1 at the Battle of Cowan's Ford sees N.C. militia commander Gen. William Lee Davidson KIA; after the rebels lead the Brits on a wild goose chase up to the Dan River, Cornwallis draws back to Hillsborough for supplies. On Jan. 24 British man-of-war Culloden goes aground on Culloden Point on Long Island Sound. In Jan. a 500-man British force under Col. Von Hanxleden sent by gen. John Campbell of Strachur unsuccessfully try to recapture Mobile from the Spanish, and Leden is KIA. On Feb. 3 3K British troops from Saint Lucia under Adm. George Rodney and Gen. John Vaughan capture the Dutch colony of St. Eustatius, causing people back home to accuse themselves of trying to enrich themselves and neglect more important military duties; it is retaken by French forces late in the year. On Feb. 16 pissed-off at being passed over for promotion, Alexander Hamilton breaks with his boss Washington at his HQ at New Windsor on the Hudson River, accusing the latter of falsely claiming he had shown disrespect, but keeps it under wraps to preserve the old man's popularity; they part company in early Mar., and Washington is without his brilliant French translator, letter writer and virtual adopted son; but not quite, as Hamilton soon moves with his wife to De Peyster's Point opposite Washington's New Windsor HQ, pestering him with letters for an artillery command. On Feb. 25 Am. Gen. Nathanael Greene, having received reinforcements from Va. and the Carolinas, crosses the Dan River on his way S to a final confrontation with Charles Lord Cornwallis at Guilford Court House. On Feb. 27 after N.Y., Va. and Conn. cede their claims to the Ohio Country to pacify it, the last state, Md., finally adopts the Articles of Confederation, in which "each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence", and on Mar. 1 the Continental Congress formally adopts them; Conn.-born jurist Samuel Huntington (1731-96) of Conn., who has been pres. of the Continental Congress since Sept. 28, 1779 grandfathers in and becomes pres. #1 of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (really the pres. of Congress), then resigns due to bad health on July 9, and on July 10 Penn.-born Del. jurist (chief justice of Penn. since 1777) Thomas McKean (1734-1817) becomes pres. #2 (until Nov. 4). In Feb. Benjamin Franklin pleads the govt. of France for 25 livres, and they give him 6M, just enough to keep America going; Franklin then pleads old age and tenders his resignation to Congress, but they refuse and instead appoint him to a 5-man commission (with John Adams (1735-1826), Thomas Jefferson, S.C. planter-merchant Henry Laurens and John Jay) to negotiate peace with Britain when and if, with instructions to take no steps without France's approval; Laurens is captured by the British and put in the Tower of London. In Feb. Benjamin Franklin pleads the govt. of France for 25 livres, and they give him 6M, just enough to keep America going; Franklin then pleads old age and tenders his resignation to Congress, but they refuse and instead appoint him to a 5-man commission (with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, S.C. planter-merchant Henry Laurens and John Jay) to negotiate peace with Britain when and if, with instructions to take no steps without France's approval; Laurens is captured by the British and put in the Tower of London. In Feb. a new British force sent by Bengal gov. Warren Hastings led by Gen. Carmac defeats Gwalior Maratha chief Madhav Rao I "Mahadji" Shinde (1730-94) at Sipri, and the Marathas are all-but kaput. On Mar. 11 a force of 11 Spanish ships under Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid captures Santa Rosa Island and enters Pensacola Bay, causing British gen. John Campbell of Strachur to attempt to capitulate on favorable terms to save the town and garrison; too bad, a renegade British officer burns some houses, causing the Spanish to attack, and after a heroic defense Campbell surrenders Ft. George on May 10, and his troops are allowed to return to New York, where he moves into a house at the corner of Trinity Place and Thames St. off Wall St., giving the Am. rebels a free hand to go after Yorktown; the Brits have no bases left in the Gulf of Mexico except Jamaica. The pesky Am. rebels finally sink to the winning formula? On Mar. 15 2.1K redcoats under Gen. Charles Cornwallis rout 4.5K rebels under Gen. Nathanael Greene at the 5-hour Battle of Guilford Courthouse, 5 mi. NW of Greensboro, N.C., with 260 Am. and 600 British casualties, incl. 91 British KIA, becoming a Pyrrhic victory depleting Cornwallis' troops so much that he is forced to abandon the Carolinas and move to the Va. coast to get protection from the royal navy and get reinforcements; English parliamentary leader Charles James Fox utters the soundbyte "Another such victory and we are undone"; Cornwallis evacuates to Wilmington to resupply while Greene heads into S.C. to link up with guerrillas and draw Cornwallis after him into a war of endless attrition: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." On Apr. 30 British forces under Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold are prevented from capturing Richmond, Va. by Gen. Lafayette and his 1.2K men; Gen. William Phillips links up with Arnold and assumes overall command, but dies on May 13 of typhoid fever. On May 13 (May 14?) 1st Rhode Island Regiment cmdr. Col. Christopher Greene (b. 1737) is ambushed by a group of loyalists in his HQ on the Croton River in Westchester County, N.Y., and his body mutilated as a reprisal for leading black soldiers in combat against whites? In May Gen. Cornwallis ignores Gen. Greene's bait and marches N into Va. to link up at Petersburg with Gen. Benedict Arnold and 6K British troops sent by Gen. Clinton in New York, and aids Arnold in his war of maneuver with American forces under Lafayette and von Steuben; the combined British force numbers 7.2K, far outnumbering the American force. In May the Continental Congress appoints Liverpool-born Robert Morris (1734-1806), the richest man in Philly (who this year founds the Bank of Penn., the oldest financial institution in the U.S.) as the new supt. of finance, and he asks Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816) of N.Y. (a relative?), who wrote a series of Essays on the Proposed Financial System of the U.S. in 1780 to be his asst.; Alexander Hamilton is passed over again, but he writes Robert Morris a long letter telling him how to do his job, which he praises; in May Congress approves Morris' plan for the Bank of North Am., a merchant bank to help finance the war, which is chartered by Congress by a narrow margin on Dec. 31, and opens next Jan. 7; meanwhile Polish Jewish immigrant (since 1775) Haym (Chaim) Salomon (Solomon) (1740-85) aids Morris, brokering bills of exchange for federal govt. expenses and personally financing members of the Continental Congress incl. James Madison at low interest rates, becoming known as "the Financial Hero of the Am. Rev."; in May Gen. Philip John Schuyler (1733-1804) laments in a letter written to his son-in-law Alexander Hamilton that the New York frontier around Albany, which had been plundered repeatedly by Tory and Indian raids, is "one general scene of ruin a nd desolation"; the success of his spy network causes about 20 Tories and Indians to try to kidnap him on Aug. 7 at his mansion. On June 11 a Congressional peace commission, composed of John Adams (1735-1826), John Jay, Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), Henry Laurens and Thomas Jefferson is formed; on June 15 Congress modifies the 1779 peace instructions to incl. only as essential the independence and sovereignty of the U.S. On July 31 Alexander Hamilton finally succeeds in obtaining command of a New York light infantry battalion, his big chance for battlefield glory; meantime, in July-Aug. he pub. four essays in The New-York Packet titled The Continentalist under the alias A.B., calling for a strong nat. govt. that could swing large foreign loans to win the war. The fox becomes the hound and the war is no longer in doubt as the fighting generals put their best foot forward and fight with true gallantry like gen gen gentlemen to a final conflict? Gen. Cornwallis's army ravages the Richmond area, one sortie led by Tarleton almost capturing Gov. Thomas Jefferson and his Virginia Legislature at Charlottesville, and causing them to flee on June 4; Cornwallis then occupies Yorktown and Gloucester on Aug. 1-2; Yorktown, on the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, surrounded on three sides by water is equally a perfect fortress and a perfect trap?; Am. Gen. Thomas Nelson Jr. (1738-89) of Va., a DOI signer who succeeded Thomas Jefferson as gov. of Va., who had already raised $2M for the rebel cause by using his property as collateral urges Gen. Washington to shell his Nelson House home in Yorktown (HQ of Cornwallis), offering 5 guineas to the first man to hit it, and ends up bankrupt ("he gave all for liberty"); Lafayette occupies Williamsburg (12 mi. S of Yorktown) with a small force; in Aug. Cornwallis begins defensive earthworks around Yorktown with 8.3K regulars and 2K escaped slaves promised their freedom; the British army numbers 8.7K; French Adm. of the West Indies Francois Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse (1722-88) informs Gen. Washington in mid-Aug. that his fleet is sailing for the Chesapeake, causing Washington and French Gen. Comte de Rochambeau to cancel plans to attack New York and support Comte de Grasse and Lafayette, crossing the Hudson River in late Aug. with 2K patriot and 5K French troops, arriving on Aug. 30 and winning the Battle of the Chesapeake on Sept. 5, trapping Cornwallis; explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville commands a ship under de Grasse; the naval Battle of the Virginia Capes (Capes Charles and Henry) starting on Aug. 30 is won by de Grasse on Sept. 15, after first sealing off Cornwallis' army from sea evacuation, and landing 3K French troops; on Sept. 5 the British fleet arrives off the Virginia Capes and finds 26 French warships in three straggling lines; rear adm. Thomas Graves waits for the French to form their battle lines farther out to sea and then fights for five days, finally withdrawing to New York City; the French have 37 ships and 29K soldiers and sailors at Yorktown while Washington has 16K men (half French; 75% of his Am. troops are Irish).

On Sept. 4, 1781 Spanish gov. of Calif. (1777-82) Felipe de Neve (1724-84) along with the Franciscans found El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles (Town of the Queen of the Angels) (modern-day pop. 3.8M/18.6M) from an Indian village named Yangma; 29 of the first 44 Spanish settlers (Los Pobladores) are of African ancestry. On Sept. 8, 1781 the Continentals under Gen. Nathanael Greene attack a British force in the Battle of Eutaw Springs in S.C., driving the British back, becoming the last major Am. Rev. War battle in the lower South; the patriots enter the British camp and begin enjoying captured rum, giving the Brits time to reform, counterattack and drive them from the field; both sides suffer high casualties, with the Brits suffering the highest of any force in the war; the Brits return to Charleston, leaving Greene in control of the rest of the state; George Washington's 2nd cousin Col. William Washington is captured, and remains a POW for the rest of the war, then is promoted to brig. gen. after the war. The original Doo-Wah-Diddy-Diddy walking down the street? On Sept. 16, 1781 British Gen. Lord Charles Earl Cornwallis (1738-1805) directs the sinking of a fleet of ships at Yorktown to block a French landing and keep them out of enemy hands; on Sept. 28 the Battle of Yorktown (staged from Williamsburg, Va.) begins with the siege of Yorktown Heights, during which Gen. Washington and his staff come under fire while observing the action; when an aide suggests to GW that he "step back a little", he replies, "Col. Cobb, if you are afraid, you have the liberty to step back"; on Oct. 6 French engineers begin to dig two parallel trenches around the British lines, trapping them; on Oct. 9 the shelling of the trapped British begins with Washington himself touching off the first volley of cannon fire; on Oct. 14 the trenches are almost complete, and a night bayonet raid on the last two British redoubts led by Alexander Hamilton's patriots on one side and the French on the other allows them to be finished; attacks begin with two 400-man columns, one Am. and one French, and continue day and night; desperate Cornwallis tries infecting black slaves with smallpox and letting them wander to the other side; an attempt at a sea escape on the night of Oct. 16 is foiled by a storm; Cornwallis offers surrender on the morning of Oct. 17 via a red-coated drummer boy and an officer waving a white handkerchief on the parapet, which takes awhile to get noticed amid all the fury; the surrender is signed on Oct. 18, and on Oct. 19 the troops formally surrender to Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln (who had surrendered his sword to Clinton at Charleston 17 mo. earlier) and 17.6K handsomely-dressed French and raggedly-dressed Am. troops to the sound of the old English ballad The World Turned Upside Down, while the Yankees play "Yankee Doodle"; Cornwallis has a subordinate surrender his sword, becoming the last major battle of the Am. Rev. War (which drags on for 2 more years), 4 years since Saratoga and 6.5 since Lexington and Concord; Gen. Lafayette later writes "The play is over... the fifth act has just ended"; Gen. Layfayette's Virginia Campaign helped set it up and end it?; on Oct. 23 Gen. Henry Clinton arrives off Chesapeake Bay with 7K relief troops, and then returns to New York after finding that he's too late; Washington's army returns to positions N of New York City; by Oct. the Continental army has 5K black regulars (25%), plus 10K working as servants, laborers, and cartmen. In Sept. British gen. Benedict Arnold leads marauding raids into Conn.; in Dec. Arnold and his babe Peggy Shippen move to England, where he ends up a miserable businessman after he can't get an army commission. In Sept. Dutch patriotic leader Baron Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol (1741-84) pub. a pamphlet titled To the People of the Netherlands (Aan het Volk van Nederland), attempting to spark an Am.-style govt. there. On Nov. 5 John Hanson (1715-83) of Md. becomes pres. #3 of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (unti Nov. 3, 1782). On Nov. 15 Gen. George Washington writes a letter to Thomas McKean, pres. of the Continental Congress patting himself on the back about Yorktown, saying, "I take particular pleasure in acknowledging that the interposing Hand of Heaven... has been most conspicuous and remarkable". On Nov. 19, 1781 word of the big V at Yorktown reaches France. In Nov. 1781 the New York legislature bars Tory lawyers from state courts, causing a boom for patriot lawyers (repealed in 1786); Aaron Burr opens an Albany law office next July, followed by Alexander Hamilton 6 mo. later. In 1781 N.H. abolishes slavery, joining R.I., Penn. and Mass. In 1781 14-y.-o. Andy Jackson is captured in ? In 1781 John Quincy Adams serves as secy. to the U.S. ambassador to Russia. In 1781 in Charlestown, S.C. William Collings sells his wife to Thomas Schooler with her bed and clothing for $2 and a half dozen bowls of gross. In 1781 John Paul Jones, "father of the American Navy" returns to the U.S. and supervises the construction of USS America (American ship), the largest vesssel in the U.S. Navy, uttering the immortal soundbyte "In time of peace prepare for war"; too bad they give it to France instead; after the war ends he goes to Paris as agent of the U.S. to collect money for all the prizes taken and delivered to France. In 1781 Dr. John Phillips (1719-95), uncle of Phillips Academy of Andover founder Samuel Phillips (1752-1802) founds Phillips Exeter Academy in nearby Exeter, Mass. to inculcate more Calvinism, with the motto "Youth from Every Quarter", becoming rivals with Phillips Exeter Academy and going on to gain famous Exonians Daniel Webster (1782-1852), Pres. Franklin Pierce, the sons of presidents Abe Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, Amos Alonzo Stagg, and Booth Tarkington. In 1781 Correspondence with the Continental Congress leads to the establishment of the U.S. Mint in 1792.

On Feb. 27, 1782 the British House of Commons votes against waging further war on the pesky rebels in Am.; on Mar. 5 it authorizes the crown to make peace, causing Lord North's ministry to crumble; French foreign minister Comte de Vergennes entrusts Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours with peace negotiations with the British. On Mar. 8 the Gnadenhutten (Moravian) Massacre in Ohio sees 96 unarmed Christianized Indians slain by militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indians. The original chipping golf balls in Rockingham while somebody else does it at Gretna Green? On Mar. 20 Lord North resigns, and on Mar. 27 Whig Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (b. 1730) (who helped repeal the Stamp Act) becomes British PM for the 2nd time (until July 1); his first act in office is to acknowledge the existence of the new country in America; on Mar. 27 pro-American Whig orator Charles James Fox (1749-1806) is appointed secy. of state for foreign affairs over the king's opposition; on July 1 Rockingham dies, and on July 4 William Petty-Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, 1st Marquesse of Lansdowne (1737-1805) (friend of Benjamin Franklin) becomes home (colonial) secy. (PM) (until Apr. 2, 1783), both being sent to begin negotiations in Paris with Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), the only one of the five commissioners present for the next few mo.; Franklin suggests that the British cede control of Canada to help pay reparations, then makes a mistake by giving British peace commissioner Richard Oswald (1705-84) some notes that hint at compensating British loyalists in America, and covers it up by printing a fake newspaper about British atrocities making such compensation out of the question and sending it to John Adams; meanwhile Fox and Lord Shelburne disagree on the Am. peace terms and become enemies. On Mar. 26 maj. gen. Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester (1724-1808) replaces Henry Clinton as CIC of the crumbling British army in the birthing U.S. (until 1783); Gen. Lord Amherst is dismissed, and replaced as lt. gen. of the ordnance, causing the king to appoint him col. of the Second Troop of Life Guards to keep him close. On Apr. 7 mad Taksin the Great (b. 1734) is executed by a coup after they reject his offer to become a monk; gen. Chao Phraya Chakri becomes king Rama I (Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke) (1737-1809) of Siam (until 1809), founding the Chakri Dynasty in Siam (Thailand) (ends ?) on Apr. 21 at 54 min. after sunrise by placing the City Pillar for the new capital city of Bangkok (modern pop. 7M) on the Chao Phraya ("River of Kings") River. On Apr. 9-12 the British Navy under Adm. Sir George Rodney wins its only naval engagement against the rebel colonists in the Am. Rev. at the Battle of Saints' Passage (the Saintes) (Dominica) off Dominica, taking advantage of a shift in the wind to break the French line unnder French Adm. Comte de Grasse not once but twice, saving Jamaica and ruining French naval prestige, after which Rodney writes "Within two little years I have taken two Spanish, one French and one Dutch admirals."; the French fleet was the same one that blockaded the British army during the Siege of Yorktown. On Apr. 19 the Netherlands recognizes U.S. independence. In Apr. Russia bans secret societies. On May 17 the Treaty of Salbai between the Maratha Empire and the British East India Co. ends the First Anglo-Maratha War (begun 1773), recognizing Madhav Rao II (1774-95) as the ruler (peshwa), granting Rabhundath Rao a pension, and returning all territories W of the Jumna (Yamuna) River to Shinde, bringing peace for the next 20 years. In May 27-y.-o. Thomas Grenville, son of George "Stamp Act" Grenville arrives in Paris as British envoy for Charles James Fox, and Franklin soon discovers that he is authorized only to negotiate with France because the English king still won't recognize American independence, but French minister Vergennes helps Franky Baby out by insisting that England deal directly with America "consistent with the dignity of your state". In May Alexander Hamilton finally becomes a citizen of New York State. On June 11 on the strength of the V at Saratoga, John Adams finally arranges a large loan for the Continental Congress from Holland, allowing the rebels to keep the pressure on the way and hammer the last stake in their hearts; as he returns to France peace talks are already underway, and he sends for lonely Abigail, who brings her children and is wowed by Paris nightlife. On June 20 the U.S. Congress approves the Great Seal of the United States, originally designed by Irish-born Continental Congress secy. (1774-89) (DOI signer) Charles Thomson (1729-1824) and Penn. lawyer William Barton (1754-1817), with the motto "E Pluribus Unum" (out of many, one), with a coat of arms derived from the Belcher Coat of Arms, used by Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757), founder of Princeton U. and friend of Benjamin Franklin; on Sept. 16 the design of the Great Seal is adopted: 13 stars, 13 stripes, 13 clouds, 13 arrows, 13 laurel leaves, 13 berries, 13 feathers in each wing and tail of the American Bald Eagle, 13 rows in pyramid, 13 letters in each motto (E pluribus unum and Annuit coeptis); the colors red, white and blue stand for courage, justice and innocence - and the Wheel of Fortune? Plenty of Freemason and Illuminati symbology to keep any conspiracy theorist happy? In June British foreign secy. Charles James Fox obtains a grant of complete legislative independence for Ireland. In the summer the Continental Army's sets up its last cantonment at New Windsor, N.Y., 60 mi. N of New York City (until next summer); Gen. Washington's HQ is in nearby Newburgh. On July 1 the Marquis of Rockingham (b. 1730) unexpectedly dies after 14 weeks as British PM (since Mar. 27), and the king offers the job to Lord Shelburne, causing rival minister (no favorite of the king) Charles James Fox to resign, and his envoy Thomas Grenville to be recalled from Paris, prompting Benjamin Franklin to make an informal peace offer on July 10, divided into "necessary" provisions (recognition of independence, removal of British troops, secure boundaries, secure fishing rights off Canada), and "advisable" ones (reparations, acknowledgement of British guilt, a free trade agreement, ceding Canada to the U.S.); Franklin then suffers a gout attack lasting until late Sept., keeping him at Passy, causing John Jay to take over as lead negotiator. On July 11 the British evacuate Savannah, Ga. On Aug. 7 Gen. George Washington creates the Order of the Purple Heart (originally the Badge of Military Merit) to recognize merit in enlisted men and noncommissioned officers wounded in combat; in May 1783 the first recipients are Elijah Churchill and William Brown; only one more is awarded to Rev. War soldiers; it is not revived until George Washington's 200th birthday on Feb. 22, 1932. On Aug. 19 the Battle of Blue Licks near modern-day Mount Olivet, Ky. sees 50 British rangers plus 300 Indians ambush and rout 182 Kentucky militiamen, incl. Daniel Boone, becoming their worst D of the Am. Rev. War; Boone's son Israel Boone (b. 1759) is killed. On Aug. 27 the Battle of the Combahee River in Beaufort County, S.C., a skirmish as British troops are foraging for rice becomes the last fighting between Americans and British in the Am. Rev. War; Alexander Hamilton's friend (lover?) John Laurens is killed. In Aug. Ben Franklin's son William flees to London after his ordering of a raid on rebel forces results in the lynching of an Am. captain. On Oct. 5 after John Jay sends secret envoy Benjamin Vaughan to ask for it, Lord Shelburne sends a note to commissioner Richard Oswald changing his commission to negotiate with "the said colonies and plantations" to "the colonies under the title of 13 united states", and formal peace negotiations begin in Paris between the formally recognized U.S. and Britain; fearing that the French are angling for a separate peace with the British, John Jay persuades Franklin to do the same; the new U.S. offer allows Britain free navigation rights on the Mississippi; John Jay arrives in Paris, along with Adm. Howe's secy. Henry Strachey, fresh from the British V at Gibraltar, and negotiations get serious starting on Oct. 30 (Adams' 47th birthday), haggling over fishing rights off Newfoundland ("New England's ancient stake in the sacred codfish" - Adams), prewar debts, the western boundary, and compensation for British loyalists in America. On Nov. 1 after the V at Yorktown, the Continental Congress issues a Thanksgiving Proclamation for Nov. 28. On Nov. 3 Philly-born Elias Boudinot Jr. (1740-1821) becomes pres. #4 of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (until Nov. 2, 1783); Alexander Hamilton takes a seat in the Congress, which suffers from many members staying home in preference to state seats, and meets James Madison (1751-1836), who has the record for most attendance; they become friends and allies in the struggle to strengthen the federal govt. On Nov. 10 an Am. retaliatory attack against loyalist and Indian forces at a Shawnee village in Ohio territory is the last battle of the Am. Rev. War. On Nov. 18 the British evacuate Wilmington, N.C. On Nov. 30 Preliminary Peace Articles are signed at the British suite at the Grand Hotel Muscovite in Paris (the U.S. secy. is Ben Franklin's grandson Temple Franklin), acknowledging the U.S. as "free, sovereign and independent", and ending the Am. War of Independence, but with final agreement depending on a Franco-British settlement, which takes 9 mo.; the Northwest Territory (S and W of the Great Lakes, NW of the Ohio River, and E of the Mississippi River, incl. the future states of Ohio, Ind., Ill., Mich., Wisc. and part of Minn.) is ceded by Britain to the U.S., becoming its first possession; meanwhile Franklin tries to fix things up with the French for acting without consulting them, on Dec. 25 writing "one of the most famous of all diplomatic letters", implying that making the "little misunderstanding" public would help Britain divide them, even drive the U.S. into an alliance with Britain, which causes stunned French minister Vergennes to crumble, commenting "We shall be but poorly paid for all that we have done for the United States and for securing to them a national existence" - no wonder the French have a love-hate relationship with Yankees? On Dec. 14 Charleston, S.C. becomes the last British outpost in the U.S. to be evacuated.; 5K blacks are evacuated, incl. 2.5K slaves owned by loyalists, who are sent to the West Indies; 500 black slaves are sent to E Fla. In Dec. 1782 Washington's officers complain to Congress about the lack of back pay and pensions, without satisfaction. In 1782 Saratoga loser Gen. John Burgoyne becomes British CIC in Ireland, where he mainly spends his time writing dramas. In 1782 Christopher Gadsen is elected gov. of S.C., but refuses to accept the office because of ill health from his long imprisonment by the Brits, although he continues to be active politically, becoming a member of the S.C. conventions which ratify the U.S. Constitution and draft the S.C. state constitution. In 1782 24-y.-o. James Monroe is elected to the Va. legislature and becomes a member of the executive council. In 1782 oh-baby-I'm-ready-for-love Aaron Burr marries Mrs. Theodosia Prevost (-1794), widow of a British officer; they have one daughter, Theodosia. In 1782 Washington College in Chestertown, Md. is founded, named in honor of George Washington, becoming the first college chartered after U.S. independence, and becoming known for celebrating May Day in the nude by the flagpole. In 1782 Father Junipero Serra founds San Buenaventura (Ventura) Mission in Calif.

In 1783-5 the pop. of New York City doubles to 24K. In 1783 the creation of the U.S. leaves Britain without a place to dump its convicts, causing them to end up sending them Down Under. You can find me on Monster.com? On Jan. 6, 1783 the officer corps presents Congress with a petition airing their many grievances, incl. being owed up to six years of back pay, and being in danger of being put in debtors' prisons at war's end; on Mar. 10 as the Continental Army bivouacks in Newburgh, N.Y., two anon. letters by Maj. John Armstrong Jr. (aide to Gen. Horatio Gates) call on them to mutiny; after learning of them, Gen. George Washington calls for a meeting of 500 officers on Mar. 15, where he urges them to wait until Congress satisfies their claims, urging "more moderation and longer forbearance"; after they begin to tune him out, he pulls out a pair of glasses and utters the soundbyte: "You must pardon me, for I have grown not only gray but blind in the service of my country", causing a three-hanky moment, ending the mutiny, allowing Washington to lobby Congress on their behalf; after Penn. militiamen march on Philly and force Congress to flee to Princeton, N.J., they are finally promised a pension equal to five years' back pay. On Jan. 20 Britain signs a preliminary peace treaty with France and Spain after the latter give up on Gibraltar - but not really? In Jan. Comte de Rochambeau and his troops return to France, and the U.S. Congress votes the thanks of the nation to them; on May 24, 1902 a Statue of Comte Rochembeau is unveiled in Washington, D.C. by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. On Feb. 3 Spain recognizes U.S. independence. On Feb. 4 Britain officially declares an end to hostilities in former British Am. On Feb. 4 a series of earthquakes begins in Calabria, Italy killing 50K, becoming the first earthquake to be investigated scientifically. On Feb. 5 Sweden recognizes the U.S. On Feb. 6 the Spanish-French siege of Gibraltar (begun 1779) is lifted after 3 years 7 mo. 12 days. On Apr. 2 after Lord North and Charles James Fox make up and help defeat Lord Shelburne, aristocratic Whig (lord lt. of Ireland in 1782) William Cavendish Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738-1809) becomes PM (until Dec. 19) of a coalition govt., with Fox as secy. of state, and Fox and North calling the real shots; too bad, after Fox introduces the India Bill, proposing that the govt. of India be vested in an India Board appointed by Parliament, the pissed-off king personally intervenes, causing Portland's ministry to come unglued (uncemented?), and on Dec. 19 American-woman-get-away-from-me "independent Tory" (not a Whig) William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) becomes English PM (until Mar. 14, 1801), the youngest in history pip pip bloody bloody and all that rot; for one reason or another Fox is kept out of the ministry until 1806, becoming content with being the you-really-got-me hot lips orator of Parliament; meanwhile conservative Whig William Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 2nd and 4th Earl FitzWilliam (1748-1833) (a descendant of William I the Conqueror, who inherited his uncle the Marquess of Rockingham's vast Yorkshire estates in 1782, making him a player, and who was slated to become head of the India Board but now is out of that job) becomes head of the opposition. On Apr. 11 the Continental Congress officially declares an end to the little ole warry war war war with the hated Brits, but now their own constitutional weakness leads to a near breakdown; Alexander Hamilton is chmn. of the committee in charge of peace arrangements; they enact a new system of import duties in an attempt to pay the soldiers, who are clamoring for their pay, but they prove to be too little too late; in mid-June rebellious troops in Philly send Congress a petition demanding their pay, followed by 80 armed soldiers marching from Lancaster to get it by force, entering Philly on June 20, seizing several arsenals; on June 24 400 drunken soldiers circle the State House, where Congress was in a special Saturday afternoon session, causing them to exit and flee to Princeton after Pennsylvania refues to send out the state militia; a month later they move to Annapolis; a year later to Trenton and Princeton (sitting in Nassau Hall), then to New York City in 1785; the whole affair gives rise to the resolve to house the national capital in a special federal district not at the mercy of state govts. On Apr. 17 the Battle of Ark. Post (Colbert Raid) (Colbert Incident) sees British partisans under James Colbert siege the fort for six hours before being repelled by Spanish defenders; too bad, they didn't get the news of the Jan. 20 peace treaty between Britain and Spain, becoming the only Am. Rev. War battle fought in Ark. On Apr. 19 Thomas Paine pub. the last issue of The Crisis, with the soundbyte "These are the times that tried men's souls, and they are over". On Apr. 23 U.S. suptd. of finance Robert Morris (1734-1806) writes a Letter to Congress proposing the idea of his asst. Gouverneur Morris of decimalizing U.S. coinage, and Thomas Jefferson takes up the idea based on the Spanish dollar. On Apr. 26 7K loyalist businessmen set sail for Nova Scotia, Canada from New York, bringing the total to 100K; New York's economy suffers as the businessmen take their capital with them. In May Gen. Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton et al. hold the first meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati in Fishkill (modern-day Beacon), N.Y. for Continental officers who had served with honor for at least three years, named after Roman Gen. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (-519 to -430), dictator of Rome in -458 and -439, who resisted the urge to becoming a dictator for life or king and went back to his humble farm, what a man, guess who Washington is the reincarnation of, it's not just beautiful, it's just another ordinary miracle today?; too bad, it pisses-off Samuel Adams, who calls it "a stride towards a hereditary military nobility"; after they do it anyway when the war ends, it becomes the oldest military hereditary society in the U.S. to survive to modern times. Do you know the way to Hot Air Bay? On June 4 the Montgolfier Brothers publicly demonstrate their paper-lined linen hot air balloon, which rises to a height of 3K ft. at Annonay, France in a 10-min. 1-mi. flight; on Aug. 27 Parisian physicist Jacques Alexandre Cesar (César) Charles (1746-1823) launches a 13-ft.-dia. silk balloon (constructed under his supervision by A.J. and M.N. Robert) filled with hydrogen in Paris in front of 50K spectators; it floats at 3K ft. for more than 45 min. and lands in a village 16 mi. away, where the spooked villagers attack it with stones and knives; on Sept. 19 the Montgolfier Brothers conduct another demo in Versailles, witnessed by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, where a duck, rooster, and sheep become the first living passengers, traveling 2 mi. in 8 min., with max. alt. of 1.5K ft, pissing the king off with the dense smoke they deliberately generate in the belief that it's what causes the buoyancy, later learning that it's heat; on Oct. 15 French daredevil physician Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier (1754-85) makes the first tethered balloon ascension, repeating the demo on Oct. 17 before a group of scientists, then reaching 324 ft. on Oct. 19; on Nov. 21 (2 p.m.) champagne-toting de Rozier and army officer Francois Laurent Marquis d'Arlandes (1742-1809) make the first untethered human flight, reaching a peak alt. of 500 ft. and traveling 5.5 mi. in 25 min. from the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the presence of Louis XVI and a huge crowd, across the Seine River to the Butte-aux-Cailles; the next day Benjamin Franklin et al. sign the official certification at Passy; on Nov. 31 Jacques Charles (financed by Franklin) flies in his hydrogen balloon, while gouty Franklin watches from his carriage near the Tuileries Gardens; balloon exhibition flights soon become the rage in Paris; when asked what was the practical use of these balloon thingies, Franklin replies "What is the use of a newborn baby?"; the power of a mere individual to go over the king's head and attract large crowds is a giant leap for popular democracy, making the French Rev. inevitable, and, combined with the success of the U.S., it coulda gone better if only they hadn't dabbled with the powder keg of godless atheism? On July 8 the Supreme Court of Mass. finalizes the 1781 abolition of slavery in Mass. On Sept. 3 the Treaty of Paris (drafted Nov. 30, 1782) is signed by the U.S. and Great Britain, along with the Treaties of Versailles by France and Spain, formalizing U.S. independence and defining its borders, with Britain recognizing U.S. independence and agreeing to a W boundary at the Mississippi River, while the N and S boundaries are left for future definition; Spain regains East and West Florida and Minorca in exchange for the Bahamas; Illinois is formally ceded by Britain, and the U.S. is granted the liberty of fishing off Newfoundland the St. Lawrence Gulf, along with the right to dry their catches on the unsettled Atlantic coast of Canada; there is also some mumbo jumbo about restoration of confiscated Tory property and removal of legal impediments to British merchants seeking to collect debts; following this treaty, the British withdraw from the U.S., taking thousands of freed slaves with them and settling them in Nova Scotia (until 1791); British adm. George Rodney (d. 1792), who destroyed or captured 15 of the 21 U.S. ships in the war, and accepted the surrender of four adms. during his super career, and who was made vice-adm. of Great Britain (the top job) in 1781, goes into retirement; La. gov. Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid, who helped draft the Treaty of Paris to make sure the Spanish got Fla. returns to Spain as a hero, and the towns of Galveston, Tex. and St. Bernard Paris, La. are later named after him; Green Bay, Wisc. (founded 1634) becomes the first U.S. town in Wisc.; in Sept. on their way home Algerian pirates harass Am. ships, causing Americans to claim that Britain paid them to attack them; Joseph Calve is sent from Mackinac to notify the Indians of the Upper Mississippi River of the cessation of hostilities; the 120-sq.-mi. island of Grenada in the E Caribbean is ceded by the French, becoming a British possession, along with the 133-sq.-mi. island of St. Vincent between Grenada and Saint Lucia, where the Black Carbis (Garifuna) fight the British under paramount chief Joseph Chatoyer (Satuye) (-1795). On Sept. 9 Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penn. becomes the first college chartered in the U.S., founded by DOI signer Benjamin Rush and named in honor of DOI signer-not John Dickinson. On Oct. 7 the Va. House of Burgesses grants freedom to slaves who served in the Continental Army. On Nov. 3 Washington-lookalike Quaker Maj. Gen. Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800) (who miffled fellow Quakers by fighting in the Am. Rev. War) becomes pres. #5 of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (until Oct. 31, 1784); Thomas Jefferson is sent to Congress from Va. On Nov. 8 Mass. gov. John Hancock proclaims a day of Thanksgiving for Dec. 11. On Nov. 6 the last public hanging in Britain takes place at Tyburn Hill. On Nov. 25 (Evacuation Day) the last British troops leave New York City, greasing the flagpole so that the U.S. flag can't be raised without pitching another pole; Gov. George Clinton and George Washington ride side-by-side into the city, guarded by Westchester light cavalry, amid cheering crowds; during his week stay in New York City, Gen. Washington salvages the reps of suspected Tories who really are patriot spies, incl. Hercules Mulligan and James Rivington, who helped steal the British fleet's signal book and transmit it to Admiral de Grasse; former Pensacola gov. gen. John Campbell of Strachur succeeds Sir Guy Carleton as CIC of British North Am. based in Canada until 1787, after which he returns to Scotland and pouts about his big D in West Fla., uttering the soundbyte "It has been my Misfortune... to be employed in an ill fated Corner of his Majesty's Dominions... My Endeavours have unremittingly been exerted for West Florida's preservation to the British Empire since I took upon me the military command, and if my Labours and Exertions to that End shall but find favour with my sovereign, I shall forget the Frowns of Fortune and be happy in the Royal Approbation." On Nov. 26 the brig Philadelphia Packet runs ashore on Sinepuxent Bar, and about 70 passengers hire a schooner to go ashore, but it overturns, killing them all. On Dec. 2 Gen. George Washington writes a letter letter to a group of recent Irish immigrants, with the soundbyte "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." On Dec. 4 the British evacuate Staten Island and Long Island; the same day Gen. Washington delivers his tearful farewell address to his army at Fraunces Tavern at the corner of Broad and Pearl Sts. run by his West Indian steward Samuel "Black Sam" Fraunces, resisting all calls to become a king; Alexander Hamilton, who a few days earlier had rented a house at 57 Wall Street close by, pointedly fails to attend; the troops are discharged the next day; Washington strolls down Whitehall St., trailed by speechless admirers, and boards a barge for New Jersey; the last vestiges of British rule are gone, capping eight years of fighting, with 25K Am. military deaths (1% of the entire pop.); New York City (pop. 12K) is in ruins, its trees having been used as firewood by British troops. On Dec. 26 French physicist Louis Sebastien Lenormand (1757-1837) gives the first public demonstration of a parachute (a term he coined from Fr. "parasol + chute" = sunshield + fall) as a way to save people jumping from burning bldgs., jumping from the tower of the Montpellier Observatory after first testing it on animals; in 1797 he jumps 3K ft. from a balloon. On Dec. 23 Gen. George Washington appears before Congress in Annapolis and resigns his commission, refusing offers of a crown, saying that he didn't fight the war to create an American throne; a superior act in the entire history of humanity, even topping Roman gen. Cincinnatus? On Dec. 24, 1783 Washington arrives back home at Mount Vernon, Va. in time for Xmas. In 1783 a U.S. Congressional apportionment of taxes counts a slave as three-fifths of a white person, which great idea is later used in the sugar-free U.S. Constitution. In 1783 New Brunswick on the St. John River in Canada is settled by 14K refugee loyalists (out of 35K in Novia Scotia) from the U.S. led by Harvard-educated Edward Winslow (1746-1815); the British approve it as a new colony next June In 1783 Tory leader Capt. John Butler settles in Canada, and becomes an agent for Indian affairs. In 1783 the first German brass band is founded in Philadelphia; 3K-5K Hessians remain in the U.S. after the war ends; the Hessian fly (Mayetiola destructor), which ravages wheat, rye and barley crops appears in Long Island, N.Y. about this time, causing rumors that it was imported in Hessian military bedding straw. In 1783 the first black benevolent society is founded in New Orleans. Aaron Burr enters New York politics, working up to state atty. gen. in 1789, then U.S. Sen. from 1791-7. In 1783 James Monroe is elected to the U.S. Congress from Va. (until 1786), working for Western development. In 1783 Josiah Flagg (1763-1816) of Boston, Mass., a silversmith trained by Paul Revere becomes the first native-born Am. dentist, going on to invent the dental chair in 1790 by adding an armrest and handrest to a Windsor chair. In 1783 Schweppes Tonic Water begins to be marketed. In 1783-5 Noah Webster (1758-1843) pub. A New and Accurate Standard of Pronunciation ("Webster's Spelling Book"), Pt. 1 of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language; Comprising An Easy, Concise, and Systematic Method of Education, Designed for the Use of English Schools in America (3 vols.), known as the "blue-backed speller"; it simplifies English, soon becoming the most popular book in the U.S.

On Jan. 14, 1784 the (Second) Treaty of Paris, "In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity, Amen" (signed Sept. 3, 1783) is ratified by the U.S. Congress, effective May 12 after the British ratify it on Apr. 9, ending the Am. Rev. War (begun Apr. 19, 1775) (9 years, 23 days); total Am. war deaths: 6.8K KIA, 17K killed by disease, 25K-70K total killed; total British daths: 9,372 KIA, 27K killed by disease, 43,833 total killed; France: 7K KIA; Spain: 5K KIA; Germany: 1.8K KIA, 4,888 deserted, 7,774 total killed; Netherlands: 37K-82.5K KIA, 500 civilians killed; British loyalists: 1.7K KIA, 5,300 killed by disease, 7K total killed; total soldiers KIA: 78.2K. In Jan. 1784 Benjamin Franklin pub. the pamphlet Information to Those Who Would Remove to America (written in Passy, France) in English and French, telling Europeans that America wants "mediocre" (middle-class) immigrants. On Feb. 28 John Wesley (1703-91) (picking a good time for it, since what American would want to continue with the church headed by King George III?) issues the Deed of Declaration in Baltimore, Md., establishing Methodism as a separate denomination from the Anglicans under the name Methodist Episcopal Church (until 1939), with leaders designated by Wesley, incl. bishop Francis Asbury (1745-1816) and itinerant evangelist Charles Atmore (1759-1826); freed slave Richard Allen (1760-1831) is ordained at the first conference of the church, but after experiencing racial prejudice he decides to form a separate Methodist Free African Society in Apr. 1787, followed in 1792 by the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philly, the first black Episcopal church in the U.S., which in 1816 becomes the African Methodist Episcopal Church; on Nov. 24 Samuel Seabury (1729-96) of Conn. becomes the first Am. Anglican (Episcopal) bishop consecrated by Scottish bishops; meanwhile Britain appoints the first Anglican bishop for the British colonies. On Mar. 1 the Emancipation Act of R.I. declares all children born in the state from that date henceforth free, but doesn't prohibit the slave trade. On June 22 after Adam Weishaupt sends plans for a French Rev. to Maximilien Robespierre in Paris, but the courier is intercepted by the Bavarian authorities, freaking them out, Bavarian elector Karl Theodor suppresses the Order of the Illuminati, along with Freemasonry, imprisoning members and forcing the rest to flee, incl. Adam Weishaupt, causing the Illuminati Order to spread to the U.S., where Thomas Jefferson defends Weishaupt as an "enthusiastic philanthropist"; secret financier Mayer Amschel Rothschild buys off the authorities to avoid prosecution; the flood of anti-Illuminati lit. spawns the modern Conspiracy Theory Movement? In Apr. N.C. votes to give the Confed. Congress 29M acres between the Allegheny (Appalachian) Mts. and the Mississippi River; on Aug. 23 the pissed-off Watauga settlers declare the state of Franklin (Frankland) in modern-day Tenn. (ends Dec. 1788) on lands W of the Appalachians ceded by N.C. to the U.S. govt., with Jean Sevier (1745-1815) (veteran of the 1780 Battle of King's Mountain) as gov. #1 (last) (1785-8), and William Cocke (1747-1828) as its rep. to Congress; after being forced to abandon his claims to Boonesboro because of faulty titles, Daniel Boone explores the Appalachian and Ozark areas, and helps found the state - you must have a dirty mind? In Aug. Thomas Jefferson (appointed in May) joins Franklin and Adams in Paris; to rumors that he arrived to replace Franklin, Jefferson replies, "No one can replace him, Sir; I am only his successor." On Sept. 21 the Penn. Packet & Gen. Advertiser, founded by Irish-born John Dunlap (1747-1812) begins pub. in Philly, becoming the first successful daily newspaper in the U.S. On Sept. 22 the Russians under Grigori Shelekov settle Kodiak (Kikhtak) Island, Alaska. In Oct. the 300-ton Boston, Mass. ship Betsy is attacked 100 mi. off the W coast of Africa by Muslims, and the sailors are sent to slave markets in Morocco. On Nov. 24 Samuel Seabury (1729-96) of Conn. becomes the first Am. Anglican (Episcopal) bishop consecrated by Scottish bishops. On Nov. 30, 1784 Richard Henry Lee (1732-94) becomes pres. #6 of the United States Congress under the Articles of Confederation (until Nov. 6, 1785). In 1784 Thomas Jefferson's land ordinance is passed. In 1784 Connecticut joins Rhode Is., Penn., Mass., and New Hampshire in abolishing slavery. In 1784 tfter meeting Great White Fathers Washington and Jefferson, wowed chief Cornplanter (1750-1836) of the Iroquois Confederation signs the Treaty of Ft. Stanwix, handing over all their land W of the Niagara River to the U.S. In 1784 Britain appoints the first Anglican bishop for the British colonies. In 1784 Loyalist gen. Sir John Johnson is assigned by the British govt. to distribute crown lands along the St. Lawrence River and N shore of Lake Ontario to loyalists, going on to settle 3,776 of the loyal pluckers. In 1784 Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant settles in Brantford, the county seat of Brant, Ont., 26 mi. SW of Hamilton on the Grand River; it later becomes famous as the location of the first successful test of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell. In 1784 the Boston Society of New Jerusalem is founded after members hear a lecture on Emanuel Swedenborg; after moving to Beacon Hill in 1845, it becomes known as the Church on the Hill (Swedenborgian). In 1784 the North-West Co. is formed by French fur merchants from Montreal, led by Isaac Todd to compete with Hudson's Bay Co. In 1784 German immigrant John (Johann) Jacob Astor (1763-1848) arrives in New York City with $25 in cash and seven flutes, and enters the fur trade, dealing directly with Indians, accumulating a $200K fortune from the ignorant red suckas in six years, then going on to become America's richest man - I'll tell you the story when the kiddies retire? In 1784 Benjamin Franklin is appointed by the French king to a commission to investigate the theories of Friedrich Anton Mesmer, who is a big fad in Paris, replacing ballooning as number one; the commission concludes that Mesmer is a fraud. In 1784 David Rittenhouse and surveyor Andrew Ellicott finish surveying the Mason-Dixon Line to SW Penn., 5 deg. of longitude from the Delaware River; the 1769 Mason-Dixon line is extended to settle the boundary between Penn. and Va. (later W. Va.). In 1784 the Boston Sentinel in Mass. is founded by Maj. Bursell.

On Jan. 1, 1785 John Walter (1739-1812) founds the Daily Universal Register in London, concentrating on ads in competition with eight other newspapers; on Jan. 1, 1788 he changes its name to The Times, and branches into scandals and gossip. On Jan. 7 the English Channel is first crossed (Dover to Calais) in a hot air balloon by Dr. John Jeffries (1745-1819) of Boston, Mass. and Jean-Pierre Francois Blanchard (1753-1809) of France (who made his first successful ascent on Mar. 2, 1784, a few mo. after Rozier on Nov. 21, 1783), entering the 18th cent. space race); Blanchard latter gives the first successful demonstration of a parachute by dropping a dog in a basket hooked to one; the have to ditch their ballast equipment and clothing to keep from landing in the water. On Jan. 21 the U.S. signs the Treaty of Fort McIntosh with the Cherokee, Wyandot, Chippewa (Ojibwe), Delaware (Lenape), and Ottawa (Odawa) at Ft. McIntosh, ceding modern-day Ohio to the U.S. and other Indians in exchange for fair payment (what color baubles do you prefer?); the Continental Congress passes the Land Ordinance of 1785 for the orderly settling of the Northwest Territory (Ohio, Ind., Mich., Ill., Wisc.); it divides all land won during the war into 640-acre (1 sq. mi.) sections and offers it for sale for $1 an acre; 36 sections comprise a township, and within each township one section is set aside to support public schools; Mass. delegate Rufus King (1755-1827) introduces a resolution prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory, which is incorporated in the Ordinance of 1787. In Jan. the New York Manumission Society in Long Island, N.Y. is founded by white mainly wealthy Quaker men to promote abolition (until 1849), with John Jay as pres. and Alexander Hamilton as secy. In Jan. U.S. ships Dauphin and Maria are captured by Muslim Algerian pirates, who parade the 21 crewman to their leader the dey, who spits on them and says "Now I have you, you Christian dogs - you shall eat stones"; this action becomes one of the driving reasons for adopting the U.S. Constitution on Mar. 4, 1789, according to Thomas Bailey. On Mar. 10 Thomas Jefferson is appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), who prepares to return from France, where he has resided since 1776; "I succeed him, but can never replace him"; in Mar. Jefferson and John Adams visit Tripoli's ambassador to London Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, and ask him by what right the Barbary states prey upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, and next Mar. 28 Jefferson writes back home with the soundbyte: "We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon a Nation who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our Friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once" - the Muslim World gave the U.S. fair warning, and they didn't take it? In Mar. commissioners from Va. and Md. meet at the Mount Vernon Conference to settle differences about the navigation of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, which leads to plans for all thirteen states to send delegates to a yearly convention in Annapolis beginning next Sept. On June 1 farmer's son and former hanging list header John Adams meets with George III, telling him how they should now be friends because they share a common language and blood - sugar sugar lip balm? On June 15 Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier, dying to be elected to the Academie des Sciences attempts to duplicate Blanchard's and Jeffries' feat of flying in a balloon across the English Channel, but unfortunately decides to use two balloons, one containing hot air and the other hydrogen; at 1.7K ft. the hydrogen bag ignites, and Rozier and his assistant drop to their deaths - welcome to now? On June 20 James Madison (1751-1836) delivers Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, a speech to the Va. legislature against a bill "establishing a provision of teachers of the Christian religion", giving eight reasons incl. "1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence"; "5. Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation" "15. Because finally, the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience is held by the same tenure with all our other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consult the Declaration of Rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basic and foundation of government, it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis." On July 4, 1785 the first Fourth of July Parade (a prayerful walk) is held in Bristol, R.I. by Am. Rev. War veteran Rev. Henry Wright of the First Congregational Church; by the next cent. festivities begin on June 14 (Flag Day) and end on July 4 with a 2.5-mi. parade; John Adams gets pissed-off when all his work to get the independence movement going is upstaged by a single document written at his request by slaveholding Johnny-come-lately Thomas Jefferson? - you have no idea I'm down here, you can't even hear me can ya, oh I pulled a muscle, it's probably in my neck? On July 6, 1785 the Continental (Confederation) Congress adopts the name "dollar" for the "money unit of the United States of America", to be divided on the decimal system into smaller units; next year Congress specifies the definition of the cent and the dime (from the French dixieme); the U.S. becomes the first country to use decimal currency. On July 12 Benjamin Franklin leaves Passy, then travels to the port of Le Havre in Queen Marie Antoinette's personal enclosed litter borne by Spanish mules; leaving Southampton on July 27, he uses his ocean voyage to do scientific experiments, arriving in Philly in Sept. to hunker down in gouty retirement. On July 17 France limits the importation of goods from Britain. On July 23 Prussia's Frederick II the Great forms Die Furstenbund (League of German Princes) against HRE Joseph II. On Aug. 9 the first recorded Chinese on the East Coast of the U.S. are brought by the ship Pallas. On Sept. 10 Prussia and the U.S. sign a Treaty of Amity and Commerce. On Nov. 23 John Hancock is elected pres. #7 of the U.S. Congress under the Articles of Confederation (2nd time); Penn.-born historian David Ramsay (1749-1815) becomes acting pres. (until May 12, 1786). On Dec. 15 Prince George of Wales (later George IV) marries twice-widowed Roman Catholic sweet cheeks Maria Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837); lucky for him, the marriage is invalid uner the 1772 Royal Marriages Act, else he would be disinherited from the crown, so she is officially treated like merde by the snob establishment, and he goes on to marry bluebood Protestant 1st cousin Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, but still hooks up with sweet cheeks now and then; after he gets her to marry him by presenting her with a miniature painting of his right eye, she gets Richard Coway to paint her right eye for him around Xmas, starting the Lover's Eyes Fad in London, which spreads through Europe, peaking in the 1810s. Warren Hastings resigns as gov.-gen. of India and returns to England. In 1785 the Russian settle the Aleutian Islands. In 1785 Harvard grad. James Bowdoin II (1726-90), son of rich merchant James Bowdoin I (1676-1747), and first pres. of the Am. Academy of Arts and Sciences becomes gov. #2 of Mass. (until 1787), and U.S. pres. is in his sights; too bad, his heavy-handed quashing of Shays' Rebellion causes him to lose his reelection, and his TB soon kills him - I new Jack Kennedy, senator, and you're no Jack Kennedy? In 1785 "Hill town" Bristol, Conn., 18 mi. SW of Hartford splits off from Farmington and incorporates as a separate town. In 1785 Thomas Paine receives $3K from Congress and a confiscated royalist farm at New Rochelle from the state of New York in 1785 in return for his services to the Am. Rev. cause. Greenville County, S.C. is founded in honor of Gen. Nathanael Greene, who goes on to live on his own plantation near Savannah, Ga. until he dies of heat stroke in 1786. Barbary pirates seize U.S. ships and imprison their crews in Algiers for 11 years while the U.S. negotiates for their release. In 1785 John Adams becomes U.S. envoy to London (resigns 1788). In 1785 Lord Selkirk receives a 116K-sq.-mi. grant on the Red River from the Hudson's Bay Co., and goes on to establish posts at Ft. Carlton, Ft. Cumberland and Edmonton House on the Saskatchewan River. In 1785 Galveston, Tex. is founded by Spanish explorer Jose Antonio de Evia (1740-?) in honor of La. gov. Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid; the first Euro settlement is begun in 1816 by pirate Louis-Michel Aury (1788-1821) as a base to support the Mexican rebellion against Spain, after which pirate Jean Lafitte takes it over in 1817. In 1785 in Canada loyalist graduates of Harvard and King's College found the U. of New Brunswick. In 1785 Wadsworth House is built by Gen. Peleg Wadsworth (1748-1829) with bricks shipped from Philadelphia by his grandfather, becoming the first brick house in Portland, Maine (487 Congress St.); his grandson poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow later lives there. In 1785 George Washington's dentist (former Am. Rev. scout) John Greenwood (1760-1819) helps raise public awareness about porcelain teeth; George Washington's teeth, which he makes in 1798 are made from hippo tusks, animal and human teeth, but no wooden teeth, although other people at the time wear them? - I wouldn't want to go to a dentist with bad wooden teeth? In 1785 the Continental (Confederation) Congress adopts the name Dollar for the "money unit of the United States of America", to be divided on the decimal system into smaller units; next year Congress specifies the definition of the cent and the dime (from the French dixieme); the U.S. becomes the 1st country to use decimal currency.

On Jan. 16, 1786 the Religious Freedom Act of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison becomes law in Va., abolishing the state church and all religious tests; too bad, most other states keep their state churches, tests and all. On Jan. 3, 1786 the U.S. signs a treaty with the Chocktaw, on Jan. 10 with the Chickasaw, and on Jan. 31 with the Shawnee - who can say no to great white father Washington? On June 6 Mass.-born Nathaniel Gorham (1738-96) becomes pres. #8 of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (until Nov. 13, 1786). On June 8 Mr. Hall runs the first ads for commercially made ice cream in the U.S. in New York City. On July 4 Vermont adopts a constitution. On July 11 Morocco agrees to stop attacking U.S. ships in the Mediterranean for a jizya payment of $10K. On Aug. 18 after a debate about whether the U.S. should have a permanent navy to fight Muslim piracy, Thomas Jefferson writes to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them... Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both"; on Dec. 26 Jefferson writes to Ezra Stiles: "It will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them." On Aug. 29 Capt. Daniel Shays (1747-1825) starts Shays' Rebellion in Mass. (ends June 1787) among disgruntled farmers, many of them Am. Rev. War vets, who were getting shafted economically by the merchant class when they had to pay a war tax in cash, and want to force the debtors' courts to close; as Thomas Jefferson puts it, "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing". In Aug. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), lonely since his wife (since 1772) Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson (b. 1748) died in Sept. 1782 meets gorgeous married-to-a-twerp Maria Cosway (1759-1838), and they fall in love; one day he tries to impress her by jumping over a fence or a pool, and fractures his right wrist so badly that he has to learn to write with his left hand; too bad, he has to part with her on Oct. 4 as she leaves with her twerp hubby for Antwerp, after which he writes her a string of weird Jeffersonian love letters until he returns to Va. on Nov. 23, 1789 aboard the Clermont from Norfolk, Va. - all she can say is, he's not her kind? On Sept. 11-14 the Annapolis Convention at Mann's Tavern, called to develop uniform commercial regulations among the states starts out limping when only five states send a total of 12 delegates, but Alexander Hamilton turns it into a success by getting a resolution passed to hold a constitutional convention in Philly next May to rewrite the Articles of Confederation "to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union"; George Washington puts in his two cents regarding the confederate form of govt.: "We have, probably, had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation." On Sept. 9 George Washington calls for the abolition of slavery. On Sept. 12 Lord Cornwallis is appointed gov.-gen. of India. On Sept. 26, 1786 France and Britain sign the Eden Treaty (a trade agreement) in London, negotiated by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, based on the principles of Adam's Smith's "Wealth of Nations", ending the cent.-long economic war between the countries and substituting a system to reduce tariffs on both sides; too bad, it is so lopsided on the British side that it hurts the French economy, fomenting the French Rev.? In 1786 Prussia recognizes the U.S. Sail away, sail away, sail away? In 1786 with the U.S. no longer welcoming British undesirables, the British govt. announces its plans to make Australia a penal colony. In 1786 the King of England's Soldiers, 300 former slaves are finally defeated at their fortified settlement in the Savannah River marshes. In 1786 British Gen. Sir Guy Carleton (created 1st Baron Dorchester for his Am. Rev. War services) becomes gov. of Quebec (1786-91, 1793-96). In 1786 the capital of Ga. is moved from Savannah to Augusta. In 1786 Mennonites from C Europe settle in Canada. In 1786 Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant visits England, meeting prominent personages and collecting funds which he uses to build the first Episcopal church in Upper Canada after he returns. In 1786 young Va. atty. John Marshall (b. 1755) distinguishes himself in the case of Hite v. Fairfax, in which he gets the claim of Lord Fairfax to the N neck of Va. upheld. James Wilkinson (1757-1825) purchases a 260-acre tract of land at Frank's Ford on the N side of the Kentucky River, which becomes Frankfort, Ky. 1786 the first golf club in Am. is founded in Charleston, S.C. In 1786 Va. politician James Monroe (b. 1758) marries Elizabeth (Eliza) Kortright (1768-1830); they have no children. In 1786 English-born Unitarian Freemason John Molson (1763-1836) founds a beer brewing dynasty in Montreal, Canada. Internal gas lighting is attempting in Germany and England. In 1786 Am. Renaissance man Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) founds the Am. Museum, the first museum of nat. history open to the gen. public in the U.S. in Philadelphia, Penn. next door to Independence Hall, opening on July 18.

In 1787 the pop. of the U.S. is 3.894M. In 1787 there is a famine in Md. On Jan. 25, 1787 Shays' Rebellion (begun 1786) is quashed after Capt. Daniel Shays and his ragtag army of 1.2K debt-ridden farmers try to seize a federal weapons arsenal in Springfield, Mass., and a small militia scatters them with a single volley that kills four, followed by Gen. Benjamin Lincoln mopping them up with reinforcements from Boston on Feb. 4 at Petersham, Mass.; the reactionaries in several state govts. suddenly become convinced federalists, seeing commie mobs under every bush, although the state legislature makes concessions to Shayites next year that pacify them; on Nov. 13 from Paris Jefferson writes a Letter to William S. Smith (son-in-law of John Adams), containing the soundbyte: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"; this attitude causes Abigail Adams to snub him for months? On Feb. 2 Scottish-born George Washington lookalike Arthur St. Clair (1736-1818) becomes pres. #9 of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (until Nov. 4, 1787). On Feb. 21 Congress approves a Constitutional Convention to meet on May 25 in Philadelphia "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". On Feb. 28 (10 weeks before the Constitutional Convention in Philly opens) the U. of Pittsburgh (originally the Pittsburgh Academy until 1819, then Western U. of Penn. until 1908) in Pittsburgh, Penn. is founded in a log cabin by lawyer Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748-1816), 1786 founder of the Pittsburgh Gazette, first newspaper W of the Appalachian Mts., becoming the oldest higher ed. inst. in the U.S. W of the Allegheny Mts. to survive to modern times; in 1966 it goes public. The Constitution Solution at long last shows how white men with big blue eyes and a heart of gold can think about us? On May 25 the U.S. Constitutional Convention opens in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Penn. with 29 delegates from nine states (average age 42) (swells to 55 from 12 states by the end, avg. age 44 - all except R.I.) (27 college grads) (34 lawyers) (over half Am. Rev. War vets), originally intending to rewrite the Articles of Confederation but deciding to write a new constitution instead; John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are absent because they are serving abroad; George Washington (nominated by Robert Morris and unanimously chosen pres.) stays in Philly as a guest of delegate Robert Morris, and doesn't take part in debates, although he consults in private; Alexander Hamilton, a prime mover in getting the convention called, attends irregularly and makes unpersuasive arguments?; James Madison's voice is so weak that no one can hear him?; Ben Franklin is too weak to stand and make a speech, asking other delegates to read for him?; Patrick Henry of Va. "smelt a rat" and refuses to attend (along with three other delegates), gets James Monroe to make several lengthy arguments against ratification, and later demands that it be investigated as a conspiracy, but then changes his mind and supports both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; the windows are kept shut supposedly to keep out horseflies but actually to preserve secrecy?; Ben Franklin (81) is the oldest delegate, and he travels in a sedan chair brought from Paris?; the youngest delegate is Jonathan Dayton (1760-1824) of N.J.; the convention delgates are divided between federalists (strong "energetic" central govt.), inc. George Washington and James Madison of Va., Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris of N.Y., James Wilson (1742-98) of Penn., Rufus King (1755-1827) of Mass., and indigo grower Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1825) of S.C., and states' rightsers, incl. William Paterson (1745-1806) of N.J., John Dickinson (1732-1808) of Del. (the dude who refused to sign the DOI but came around late after being appointed brig.-gen. in the Continental Army as a joke, resigning, then moping around for two years), Luther Martin (1748-1826) of Md., and John Ten Eyck Lansing Jr. (1754-1829) and Robert Yates (1738-1801) of N.Y. (who pull N.Y. out of the convention and never sign the constitution); on May 29 big-state men Edmund Jennings Randolph (1753-1813) and James Madison (1751-1836) of Va. introduce the Virginia Plan of proportional representation in Congress; on June 15 small-state man William Paterson (1745-1806) of N.J. counters with the New Jersey Plan of equal numbers of members for each state; Hugh Williamson (1735-1819) of N.C. plays a key role in the large vs. small state debate; on June 18 Alexander Hamilton introduces a plan for a strong executive elected for life, but it is rejected, and he walks out with the New York delegation because of their states' rights principles; on June 28 Benjamin Franklin rises to his feet and leads a prayer, which causes the members to quit stonewalling and begin making progress, causing Washington to call it a miracle (if it weren't for the Christian faith, there would have been no U.S. Constitution?); too bad for blacks, on July 12 very Christian James Madison introduces the Three-Fifths Compromise, counting three-fifths of a state's slave pop. in apportioning representation; on July 16 self-taught lawyer Roger Sherman (1721-93) and state superior court judge Oliver Ellsworth (1745-1807) of medium-state Conn. introduce the Great (Connecticut) Compromise, setting up the House of Representatives and the Senate based on the Va. and N.J. plans, respectively, and incorporating the three-fifths plan; Randolph acts like the big man and stubbornly opposes a compromise; Madison's Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention cause him to become known as the Father of the Constitution, and he observes that the decision to make the chief executive a single person causes "considerable pause", with Va. planter ("the gentleman revolutionary") ("the reluctant statesman") George Mason (1725-92), who worries about it becoming a "fetus of monarchy". On June 20 Conn. atty. Oliver Ellsworth (1745-1807) moves the Federal Convention to strike the word "National" from "National Government of the United States" and substitute "United States Government". In June English Unitarian MP William Smith (1756-1835) (grandfather of Florence Nightingale) becomes one of the first to advocate an end to the slave trade, becoming friends with William Wilberforce. Angels with dirty faces, American style? On July 13 the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 creates the Northwest Territory (Ohio River Valley) (future U.S. states of Ohio, Ind., Ill., Mich. and Wisc.) as an area free of slavery; on Aug. 23 Congress forbids itself from ending the Atlantic slave trade until 1808, and requires fugitive slaves to be returned to their owners; it is approved in Federal Hall in 1789. On July 23 delegates from New Hampshire finally arrive at the Constitutional Convention after the action's all but over, but get to sign it first as they are the most northern? On July 30 the French Parliament refuses to approve a more equitable land tax and demands that the king summon the Estates-General; on Sept. 4 Louis XVI recalls Parliament and declares that the Estates-General will be summoned in July, 1792. On Aug. 6 the first draft of the U.S. Constitution is submitted to the Constitutional Convention in Philly after 87 days of drafting. On Aug. 10 the Sixth Russo-Turkish War (ends 1792) begins after Turkey declares war on Russia; Austria joins Russia next year, while Sweden and Prussia side with Turkey but provide no assistance. On Aug. 11 George III of England creates the diocese of Nova Scotia, with loyalist Charles Inglis (1734-1816), former rector of Trinity Church in New York City as its first bishop, becoming the first Church of England bishop in North Am. On Aug. 22 John Fitch (1743-98) demonstrates his steamboat for delegates of the Continental Congress on the Delaware River. The most momentous event in human history since Eden, and the genius of compromise is enshrined in a monarchy (president), oligarchy (Senate), and democracy (House of Reps.) wedded into a menage a trois? On Sept. 15 after Gouverneur Morris makes the final revision of the draft and writes the Preamble, the U.S. Constitution is approved by the Constitutional Convention in Philly; that evening the 55 delegates party at a tavern, drinking 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of porter, eight bottles of hard cider, 12 bottles of berr,and seven bowls of alcoholic punch"; on Sept. 17 "an assembly of demi-gods" (Jefferson), presided over by George Washington assembles, and 12 of 13 states (R.I.) sign it (a total of 39 signers, not incl. John Hancock, who only signed the DOI), with Washington going first, followed by the states going from N to S; George Reed signs for John Dickinson of Del., who is sick; Maj. William Jackson (1759-1828) of S.C., secy. of the convention (later Pres. Washington's 1st term private secy.) is the 40th signer; George Mason of Va. refuses to sign because it doesn't have a bill of rights, like he drafted for Va. in 1776, and which he later becomes the father of; Edmund Randolph of Va. refuses because it gives the pres. too much power; Elbridge Gerry of Mass. refuses because it gives the federal govt. too much power and has insufficient protection for the liberties of the people (to gerrymander?); Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952) paints a famous Portrait of the Signing of the U.S. Constitution; in 1936 Barry Faulkner (1881-1966) paints a 14 ft. x 35 ft. Mural of the Signers of the U.S. Constitution for the rotunda of the Nat. Archives in Washington, D.C.; Ben Franklin weeps after he signs it, then delivers a moving address, saying, "I have happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun"; the delegates celebrate at the City Tavern; it is pub. on Sept. 19, delivered to the Congress in New York City on Sept. 20 as part of a 6-page report along with a letter from Washington, and submitted to the states for ratification on Sept. 28 after efforts to censure the convention for exceeding its authority are defeated; after the convention adjourns, Washington predicts that the Constitution won't last for more than twenty years; the words "federal" and "democracy" are not mentioned in the final version, as the govt. is assumed to be a republic with qualified electors appointing officials, and everybody knows that the new constitution's aim is to correct the defects of the old one by strengthening the federal govt.?; the federal govt. is given 20 different powers, not jillions like it comes to believe by the 20th cent.?; Penn. State Assembly asst. clerk and calligrapher Jacob Shallus (1750-96) is hired for $30 to "engross" (write out in large letters on a parchment with ink using a turkey feather quill) the actual document, four pages measuring 29" x 24" (check out that cool "We the People") (page two has 1,054 words); the U.S. Constitution has seven articles and a total of 24 sections, and doesn't mention God, Christ or the Bible, although it is dated "In the year of our Lord"; I: the Congress (10 sections) (a rep. must be 25-y.-o. and a U.S. citizen for seven years , a senator must be 30-y.-o. and a citizen for 9 years); II: the President (4); III: the Courts (3); IV: Interrelation between state and federal govt., Full Faith and Credit (Sect. 1), "Privileges and Immunities" (Sect. 2), Admission of New States (Sect. 3), "Republican form of govt." guaranteed for each state (Sect. 4); (4); V: Amendment Process (1), VI: Supreme Law of the Land et al. (1), VII: Manner of Establishment (ratification by 9 of the 13 original states) (1); the Preamble uses eight key verbs (form, establish, insure, provide, promote, secure, ordain, establish) and six key goals (Union, Justice, Tranquility, Defence, Welfare, Liberty); originally it listed the states ("We the People of the United States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, etc."): "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"; the Am. Founding Founders score a 5K Year Leap, making possible more human progress in the next 200 years than in the last 5K? - feel a little bit dance schooley? On Oct. 5 Arthur St. Clair is voted gov. of the new Northwest Territory. On Oct. 27 The Federalist Papers, a series of 85 2K-word political essays promoting the proposed new Constitution begin to be pub. in New York City newspapers under the alias Publius over the next two years (last in July 1788); the authors are Alexander Hamilton (51 of 85: 1, 6-9, 11-13, 15-17, 21-36, 59-61, 65-85), James Madison (26: 10, 14, 37-58, 62-3), and John Jay (5: 2-5, 64) (nos. 18-20 are written jointly by Madison and Hamilton); Jay would have written more but he takes sick in the fall, and Madison likewise but he has to leave the Congress in New York and return to Virginia in Mar. 1788; No. 10 (Madison) features the argument that republics work better in large inhomogeneous nations because no single faction can succeed in dominating; No. 51 (Madison) contains the quote, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition"; No. 70 (Hamilton) argues that a single energetic executive unhampered by a council is needed; No. 78 (Hamilton) is a brilliant defense of judicial review; No. 85 (Hamilton) brings the series to a close with an appeal to get the Constitution passed now and let amendments be made later, saying, "A nation without a national govt. is, in my view, an awful spectacle. The establishment of a Constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a prodigy, to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety." On Dec. 7 after letters and speeches by John Dickinson, "Blue Hen State" Delaware (Del.) becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution and be admitted, followed by #2 "Keystone State", "Coal State", "Birthplace of the U.S. State" Pennsylvania (Penn.) on Dec. 12, and #3 "Garden State" New Jersey (N.J.) on Dec. 18 - quick, hand me dela pen? I don't wanna be thoid? On Dec. 20 a revival breaks out among the Shakers of New Lebanon, Ind., spreading to Ky. and other frontier regions; the first Shaker song is written by Father James Whittaker, titled "In Yonder Valley". The New York Assembly imposes duties on foreign goods. Amar Singh (1774-98) becomes ruler of S India; during his reign Lord Dunmore, former colonial gov. of Va. becomes gov. of the Bahamas (until 1796). Louis XVI revokes a 1752 edict of Louis XV and declares Protestant marriages legal. Victor Marie du Pont de Nemours (1767-1827), son of economist Pierre Samuel enters the French diplomatic service as attache to the French legation in the U.S., going on to become first secy. of the legation in 1795 and French consul in Charleston, S.C., where he talks his daddy into emigrating. Alexander Hamilton forms the Federalist Party, backed by urban bankers and businessmen (ends 1816); John Adams becomes the only Federalist U.S. pres. In 1787 William Wilberforce (1759-1833), MP since 1780 (a shrimp who becomes a whale when giving speeches, according to James Boswell), is converted to Christianity by "evangelical Dr. Johnson" abolitionist mathematician (7th Lucasian prof. of mathematics and pres. of Queens' College, Cambridge U.) Isaac Milner (1750-1820), then meets clergyman John Newton (author of "Amazing Grace"), and is converted to the cause of "the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners", attracting Grenville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, Thomas Clarkson, Sir William Dolben, et al. to his cause, and they research the necessary legislation; too bad, the motions of converted Christian abolitionist William Wilberforce abolition of the slave trade being consistently blocked by Parliament, he decides to go directly to the people with his case, causing Josiah Wedgewood to design the black-yellow Jasper Wedgewood Slave Medallion, a cameo depicting a slave kneeling and crying "Am I not a man and a brother?", and poet William Cowper next year to write The Negro's Complaint; a boycott of slave-produced sugar gains a following of 300K across England; 519 petitions are brought to Congress, and in 1792 it finally relents and passes Wilberforce's motion, after adding the word "gradually"; too bad that the French Rev. and the West Indies slave revolts turn Parliament against him, and they flip-flop, and final victory takes until 1807 - may the force be with you? In 1787 Thomas Paine returns via Paris to England, where he nourishes ambitions of rabble-rousing on the Continent? In 1787 the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in Britain; Benjamin Franklin becomes pres. of the Penn. Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, saying, "When you're finished changing, you're finished." In 1787 Benjamin Franklin allegedly delivers the Franklin Prophecy to the Constitutional Convention, warning that the pesky Jews are going to infiltrate and take over the U.S. within a cent.; it actually never appears until 1934 in the pro-Nazi weekly Liberation, ed. by William Dudley Pelley? William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819) of Conn. becomes pres. #1 (until 1800) of Columbia College (formerly King's College) in New York City. In 1787 the term "Americanism" is coined for the emerging new vocabulary of American English (lot, caucus, bluff, swamp, et al.), as well as the American habit of speaking with a twang or nasal drawl; Thomas Jefferson coins the word "belittle" in a work pub. this year. I love making Tylenol, I put love into this product? In 1787 Am. fur-trading ship Columbia, captained by Robert Gray (1755-1806) (who trades his ship Lady Washington with Capt. John Kendrick) begins a round-the-world trip (ends 1790). In 1787 the Fugio Cent becomes the first official U.S. coin, meant to displace coins struck by individual states in the 1780s; the Brasher Doubloon becomes the rarest and most valuable U.S. coin by the 20th cent. In 1787 the U. of Pittsburgh in Penn. is founded in a log cabin as the Pittsburgh Academy, becoming Western U. of Penn. in 1819, and U. of Pittsburgh in 1908. In 1787 Thomas Jefferson sends a letter from Paris, noting that he can't find any corn (maize) in Europe, mentioning his corn garden in Va. and how likes it boiled on the cob and eaten with salt. In 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, George Washington sees a "fan chair" (worked by pedals) and orders one, using it until his death; Ben Franklin and artist Charles Willson Peale also use them.

In 1788 France begins sinking into an economic depression just as independent America is taking off, and George III's hereditary metabolic disorder of porphyria is causing him to begin periodically losing his mind; this year he is spotted having a conversation with an oak tree - he was in good mental condition when he lost the American colonies? 11 of the original 13 states join the U.S. in seven months, but it's a tough fight (D-P-NJ-G-C-MA-MD-SC-NH-VA-NY-R-NC)? On Jan. 2, 1788 "Peach State" Georgia is admitted as the 4th U.S. (slave) state; "Nutmeg State" Conn. on Jan. 9 as the 5th (free); "Bay State" "Old Colony State" Mass. on Feb. 7 as the 6th (free) by a 187-168 vote; "Old Line State" "Free State" Maryland on Apr. 28 as the 7th (slave); "Palmetto State" S.C. on May 23 as the 8th (slave); "Granite State" New Hampshire on June 21 as the 9th (free); on July 2 the Constitution is legally ratified in Augusta, Ga., but without the approval of Va. (the largest state) and New York (3rd largest), it won't fly; luckily, after Edmund Randolph flip-flops when he hears about a proposed Bill of Rights (17 amendments) by James Madison (1751-1836), Patrick Henry can't hold the state back, and on June 25 "Old Dominion" (later "Birthplace of Seven Presidents") Va. votes 89-79 to ratify, being admitted as the 10th (slave) state; on July 26 after DeWitt Clinton composes the opposition prayer: "From the insolence of great men - from the tyranny of the rich - from the unfeeling rapacity of the excise-men and tax-gatherers - from the misery of despotism - from the expense of supporting standing armies, navies, placemen, sinecures, federal cities, senators, presidents, and a long train of etceteras, Good Lord deliver us" "Empire State" New York ratifies by a 30-27 vote after Alexander Hamilton and his Federalists tell them that the caravan will leave with or without them, and comes in as the 11th (free) state; "Ocean State" "Little Rhody" Rhode Island rejects ratification on Mar. 24 (until May 29, 1790); "Tar Heel State" N.C. votes to postpone ratification on Aug. 2 until a Bill of Rights is submitted to Congress (Nov. 21, 1789); "Green Mountain State" Vermont proves to be a slow as molasses in January and takes until Mar. 4, 1791 (gotcha, it wasn't one of the original 13). On Jan. 22 Va.-born Cyrus Griffin (1749-1810) becomes the 10th and last pres. of the United States under the Articles of Confederation (till Nov. 2). On Jan. 31 "Young Pretender" Bonnie Prince Charlie (b. 1720) dies in Rome, leaving his brother Cardinal (since 1747) Henry Benedict Stuart (1725-1807), bishop of Frascati as the sole surviving heir to the Jacobite claim, and he begins calling himself Henry IX of England and Henry I of Scotland; when he dies he leaves the crown Jewels to the Church, and George IV (still prince regent) is sent a few. On Mar. 4 the first U.S. land patent is issued to John Martin (1789-1854), reserving one-third of all gold, silver, lead and copper. On Apr. 13 a mob storms Columbia College medical school in New York City to protest the practice of grave robbing for human dissection practice, and at least five people die in the ensuing riot, while the medical students are locked in jail to protect them; next year New York passes a strict statute against grave robbing. In Apr. ailing Benjamin Franklin donates £5 to the Congregation Mikveh Israel (founded 1740) for its new synagogue in Philadelphia; during the July 4 celebrations as per arrangements made by Franklin, "the clergy of different Christian denominations, with the rabbi of the Jews, walked arm in arm" in the parade past his window. In June John Adams finally returns to the U.S. and his Abigail for good, and they settle on Richmond Hill (modern Greenwich Village), with a nice view of the Hudson River, along with sons Charles, John Quincy and Thomas, and daughter Nabby. In June after several MPs visit a slave ship in London to see the terrible conditions, and Richard Pennant, Baron Penrhyn, representing the West Indian lobby (an owner of 8K acres in Jamaica, with 600 slaves) gives a speech about how happy Africans are to be shipped away as slaves, causing angry PM Pitt to threaten to resign, Parliament passes a bill sponsored by Sir William Dolben (1726-1814) regulating the number of slaves that can be transported per ship for one year, which only mobilizes the pro-slave lobby more, causing them to gain the upper hand until 1792; "Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life" (Lord Melbourne); the slave trade employs 3.5K sailors and 160+ ships, with a human cargo worth £800K a year. On July 2 the United States (U.S.) Constitution is ratified (per Article VII) by the required nine states after New Hampshire takes it over the top and becomes the 9th state to ratify it on June 21. On Aug. 17 the city of Cincinnati, Ohio (modern pop. 450K/1.4M) on the Ohio River is founded by John Cleves Symmes (1742-1814) and Col. Robert Patterson (1753-1827) as Losantville ("city opposite the mouth of the Licking River"), then renamed in 1790 by Arthur St. Clair after the 1783 Society of the Cincinnati, becoming the first U.S. boomtown; incorporated in 1819; as settlers from N.J. and other mideastern U.S. states purchase 1M acres along the Ohio River and establish several settlements, Cincinnati becomes the Gateway to the South for steamboats on the Ohio. On Sept. 13 the Congress of the Confederation authorizes the first U.S. nat. election, and declares New York City the temporary nat. capital after Kingston, N.Y. (90 mi. to the N) is considered and rejected; on Oct. 10 the Confederation Congress holds its last session; on Nov. 2 the position of Cyrus Griffin as pres. of the U.S. "in Congress assembled" is eliminated, and next year he is appointed commissioner of the Creek nation, the judge of the U.S. Court for the district of Va. in Dec. 1789 until his death on Dec. 14, 1810. In 1788 the Vatican approaches U.S. pres. George Washington about naming a new bishop in the U.S., which Washington consents to, although the distrust of the U.S. govt. is so great that it doesn't establish full diplomatic relations with the Vatican for almost two cents. (1984). In 1788 George III has his 2nd bout of madness (1765) when he gets out of a coach in Windsor Park and addresses an oak tree as his talented cousin, Frederick the Great of Prussia; he then begins to talk ever faster, once talking for 24 straight hours; when his wastrel son the Prince of Wales tries to console him, he tries to throttle him, and is put in a straightjacket, causing Prinny to dress up in expectation of becoming king for two days and nights, but the old fart doesn't die, even though he is never quite sane again, and drives through the streets to a service of Thanksgiving amid a loud cheering parade? In 1788 Ohio ("good river") and Iowa ("beautiful land") are settled; Marietta, the first settlement in Ohio is named for Marie Antoinette. In 1788 Mass. rep. Rufus king helps procure ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the Mass. Convention, then moves to New York City, and in 1789 is elected to the U.S. Senate as a Federalist. In 1788 the Marshall Islands in the W Pacific, E of the Caroline Islands are discovered by British explorer Capt. John William Marshall. John Paul Jones enters the Russian navy to fight the Turks (until 1790). In 1788 French-Canadian Julien Dubuque (1762-1810) settles on the Mississippi River opposite the modern-day Wisc.-Ill. boundary on the site of modern-day Dubuque, Iowa, and receives permission from the Fox Indian tribe to mine lead; the first permanent settlement is founded in 1833. In 1788 Daniel Boone settles near Point Pleasant, Va. (W. Va.) (until 1798). In 1788 the site of Raleigh, N.C. (on land owned by Wakefield mansion owner Joel Lane) is chosen for the state capital, and founded in 1792 in honor of Sir Walter Raleigh. The 1788 Mass. Immigration Law requires foreigners to register, and prohibits those likely to seek public relief; in 1794 it is amended to authorize forcible removal of poor people. In 1788 Joel Barlow of Conn. travels to France as agent for the Scioto Land Co., and induces French settlers to settle Gallipolis, Ohio (Fr. "city of the Gauls"), and they arrive next Oct. 17; too bad, his exposure to France makes him a Freethinking Rationalist, later becoming a friend of Thomas Paine. Also in 1788 the Richmond, Va. State Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson is finished, modeled on the Maison Caree ancient Roman temple in Nimes, France, becoming the first example of Neoclassical architecture in the U.S.

On Jan. 10, 1789 the First U.S. Pres. Election (begun Dec. 15) is held for electors who will choose him. On Jan. 9 the U.S. negotiates a treaty with the Six Nations, and another with the Wyandot. Whether or not you go for the theory that the Illuminati founded the U.S., the Jesuits and Roman Catholics don't take long to move on into Washington, D.C. in force? On Jan. 23 after the Vatican approaches U.S. pres. George Washington about naming a new bishop in the U.S., which Washington consents to, although the distrust of the U.S. govt. is so great that it doesn't establish full diplomatic relations with the Vatican for almost two cents. (1984), Georgetown U. is founded in present-day Washington, D.C. by John Carroll (1735-1815), who becomes Roman Catholic bishop of Baltimore, Md. on Nov. 6 (until Dec. 3, 1815), becoming the oldest Roman Catholic univ. in the U.S.; after the U.S. Civil War they adopt blue and gray as school colors; by 1920 their athletic teams are nicknamed the Hoyas (Gr. "hoya" = what, such); Carroll, a Jesuit who returned to the U.S. in 1774 after their suppression in Europe, who was appointed in 1784 by Pope Pius VI as prefect apostolic of the U.S. at the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin becomes the first Roman Catholic bishop in the U.S., followed by archbishop in 1808; all the church groups in the U.S. are getting federal fever and seeking to nationalize their orgs. now.? On Feb. 4 the 1789 U.S. Pres. Election by the electoral college elects Gen. George Washington (1732-99) as U.S. pres. #1 with 69 votes (unanimous) (69? get it?), but the sealed ballots are sent to New York City to be officially counted by Congress, and although the new U.S. govt. is supposed to go into effect on Mar. 4, a quorum does not assemble to hold the first session of the U.S. House of Representatives at Federal Hall in New York until Apr. 1, so the lawmakers adjourn; Washington is a Freemason, the first of 15 by the time of U.S. pres. #43 George W. Bush (a Freemason). On Mar. 4 the U.S. Senate meets for the first time, with 8 of 22 members attending; on Apr. 1 the U.S. House of Reps. holds its first full meeting in New York City with 65 reps.; the first law passed is regarding oaths of office; at first the min. size for a Congressional district is 30K, and the number of House seats increases every decade until 1912, when it levels off at 435, with 210K avg. residents per district; by 2009 the avg. district has 650K, with the largest district being Nevada (960K) and the smallest Wyoming (493K). In Washington Adam was jeopardized by a mad monster. Adam and Jack ran to the bureau, but in their hurry they broke a tile and poked a tailor. They filmed more buildings, pierced by a cannon which was linked by John's son to granite. The haze over garden and field sheltered Arthur, who cleaved his way in a hurry. He cleaved mockingly as he cried "A rose taffeta dress will hardlybe the right thing in a college, but whoever desires rose veils may truly wear them"? On Apr. 6, 1789 the electoral ballots are opened and counted, and George Washington, AKA "the Father of His Country", "the Sword of the Revolution", "the Surveyor", "the American Fabius", "the American Cincinnatus", "the Old Fox" (Lord Cornwallis' name for him), "the Sage of Mount Vernon", "the Farmer President", "His Excellency", "Town Destroyer" (Iroquois name for him) is elected as the first U.S. pres. (until Mar. 4, 1797), with John Adams receiving 34 electoral votes to become the first U.S. vice-pres. (N.Y. Gov. George Clinton receives 3 electoral votes, and 32 more votes are scattered among various Federalists and Antifederalists); the first of 12 U.S. presidents who own slaves (last is #18 Ulysses S. Grant); on Apr. 21 John Adams (1735-1826) is sworn in as the 1st U.S. vice-pres. (until Mar. 4, 1797); on Apr. 30 the 1st U.S. Pres. Inauguration under the new constitution is held in Federal (City) Hall in New York City (outdoors) (near the future site of the Twin Towers in Manhattan?), where Washington begins a tradition by kissing the Bible, and adds the words "So help me God" to the 35-word oath of office in the Constitution (first pres. precedent), then goes to the Anglican St. Paul's Chapel (near the later site of the World Trade Center, which is miraculously untouched after 9/11?), sits through a 2-hour service and takes communion, then gives Washington's First Inaugural Speech, beginning "Fellow citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives", and mentioning "an indissoluble union" and "that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect", and on Oct. 3 declares Nov. 26 (Thur.) a Nat. Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving with a Thanksgiving Proclamation, starting out "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor"; the inaugural buttons have a neat eagle and sunburst motif; Federal Hall at 26 Wall St., site of the 1735 Peter Zenger trial is the first capitol of the U.S. (until 1790), and is torn down in 1812 and replaced by the U.S. Customs House, then made into a U.S. nat. memorial in 1955; Washington's annual salary as pres. is $25K; he had offered to work for expenses, like during the war, but since he racked up a $400K bill for 1775-83, his salary becomes "the country's first economy wave" (Marvin Kitman); he refuses to shake hands, considering it demeaning to the presidency (wait till he sees Pres. Obama bow to kings?); on Apr. 23 Pres. Washington and first First Lady (she likes to be called "Lady Washington") Martha Washington (1731-1802) move into the first U.S. pres. mansion at 1 Cherry St. ("George Washington Slept Here") (cherry? get it?); next Mar. 22 Thomas Jefferson becomes the first U.S. secy. of state (until Dec. 31, 1793), John Adams becomes the first pres. of the Senate, and on Apr. 1 Frederick Muhlenberg (1750-1801) becomes the first speaker (dean) of the U.S. House of Reps. (until Mar. 4, 1797); new U.S. Sen. from Conn. (1789-96) Oliver Ellsworth (1745-1807) (coiner of the term "United States") becomes Washington's personal spokesman, and chmn. of a committee organizing the U.S. federal court system; Washington issues the first executive order; at first Adams thinks he will actively direct the Senate, leading debate like a schoolmaster, but when he proposes that the president should be addressed as "His Excellency" instead of "Mister President", the members begin to distrust him and limit him to silently watching the proceedings, forever setting a precedent that makes the vice-pres. job pretty much useless? - cheese it? On May 7 the First U.S. Inaugural Ball is held in New York City in honor of Pres. Washington and his wife Martha. On July 21 5K blacks who fought for Britain leave Savannah, Ga. for Jamaica or St. Augustine, Fla., but as property of Loyalists they never gain their freedom, causing 300 smart ones to refuse evacuation. On July 27 Congress creates the U.S. Dept. of Foreign Affairs, which is changed to the Dept. of State on Sept. 15; Jefferson and Hamilton form the core of Pres. Washington's first cabinet; their constant disagreements form the basis of the U.S. U.S. 2-Party System. On July 31 the U.S. Customs Service is formed to hassle people at the borders. On Aug. 7 Congress creates the U.S. Dept. of War (until Sept. 18, 1947), with retired Gen. Henry Knox as secy. of war #1 (#3 in rank), and a number of subdivisions, each under a chief of staff, incl. the HQ of the Army, through which the orders of the U.S. pres. are issued. On Sept. 2 the death-and-taxes U.S. Treasury Dept. is established; on Sept. 11 after Robert Morris declines, Alexander Hamilton is named treasury secy. #1, going on to single-handedly work out the U.S. financial system and end up on the back of the U.S. $10 bill (until ?) - snack happy? On Sept. 15 the U.S. Dept. of Foreign Affairs is renamed the Dept. of State. On Sept. 24 the First U.S. Congress (1st session) passes the U.S. Judiciary Act of 1789 according to Article III Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, creating a U.S. atty. gen. and a U.S. court system, consisting of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) with six justices, district courts for each of 13 judicial districts (one for each state except two for Mass. and Va.) (N.C. and R.I. haven't ratified the Constitution yet), and three circuit courts; on Sept. 26 Edmund Jennings Randolph (1753-1813) becomes the first U.S. atty. gen. (until Jan. 26, 1794); on Sept. 26 New York City-born John Jay (1745-1829) becomes the first U.S. Supreme Court chief justice (until June 29, 1795); on Sept. 26 John Rutledge (1739-1800) of S.C. (brother of DOI signer Edward Rutledge) becomes the 2nd (associate) justice (until Mar. 4, 1791); on Sept. 27 William Cushing (1732-1810) becomes #3 (until Sept. 13, 1810); on Sept. 29 Scottish-born DOI signer James Wilson (1742-98) of N.C. (most erudite of the Founding Fathers) becomes #4 (until Aug. 21, 1798); on Sept. 30 John Blair Jr. (1732-1800) of Va. (2nd most erudite?) becomes #5 (until Oct. 25, 1795); Robert Hanson Harrison (1745-90) of Md. (George Washington's 2nd private secy. in 1775 after Joseph Reed) is selected as #6 to fill out the first U.S. Supreme Court, but declines for health reasons; the All Writs Act, attached to the Judiciary Act gives U.S. courts the power to "issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law". On Sept. 25 Congress proposes 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, incl. the 10-article Bill of Rights, which is sent by Pres. Washington to the states for approval in Oct.; aborted amendment #1 would have required one U.S. rep. for every 30K pop.; Pres. Washington becomes the first U.S. pres. to name a majority of justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, followed by Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, William Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Dwight David Eisenhower. On Oct. 3 Pres. George Washington issues a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, setting Nov. 26 as the day for it; "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor." On Nov. 21 "Tar Heel State" North Carolina (N.C.) is admitted as the 12th U.S. (slave) state after a ratification vote of 194-77. On Dec. 11, 1789 the U. of N.C. at Chapel Hill is chartered, becoming the first state univ. in the U.S.; also Penn. State U. is founded from Philadelphia Academy (founded 1749). In 1789 the state of Georgia ratifies its constitution. In 1789 the Spanish attempt to colonize the Pacific coast region N of Calif., and build a fort in Nootka Sound. In 1789 the U.S. govt. votes pensions to disabled veterans of the Am. Rev. War. In 1789 Repub. lawyer James Kent attends the first session of the U.S. House of Reps. in New York City, and calls it "the consummation of our wishes... which might in some future age, much more truly than the Roman Senate, be regarded as the refuge of nations", then goes on to see his Repubs. defect to the Federalists on various votes, calling Edward Livingston "an unprincipled and malicious incendiary" - glad he didn't say refuse of nations? In 1789 the the first Gen. Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. is held in Philadelphia. In 1789 the First Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S. is held under Bishop Samuel Seabury of Conn., and it unites in a federal union and issues the U.S. Book of Common Prayer. In 1789 the Tammany Inst. (Hall) in New York City is founded; its logo is a tiger; the leading officials are called sachems, like Algonquian Indian chiefs. In 1789 the U. of N.C. in Chapel Hill is chartered, becoming the first state univ. in the U.S. In 1789 Penn. State U. is founded from Philadelphia Academy (founded 1749). Benjamin Franklin writes the immortal soundbyte in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy: "Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

In 1800 Episcopalian travelling minister and bookseller Parson Mason Locke Weems (1759-1825), who lived since 1795 in Dumfries, Va. near Pohick Church in Truro Parish,Lorton, Va., which GW and his father attended in pre-Am. Rev. days, claiming to preach at it after GW's 1799 death pub. A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington, a bestseller turning GW into "Washington, the hero, and the Demigod", "the friend and benefactor of men", "the Jupiter, Conservator of the Empire", a paragon of moral virtues who liked to pray during the winter at Valley Forge, and who as a 6-y.-o. boy chops down (actually, barks it without killing it) a cherry tree then utters the immortal moose hockey soundbyte to his father Augustine: "I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet"; the cherry tree story doesn't appear until the 1806 5th ed., and Weems claimed he heard it from a female cousin of Washington 20 years earlier; goes through 29 eds. by the time he dies in 1825, getting picked up by the popular "McGuffey Reader" used by schoolchildren, after which Washington's Feb. 22 birthday is celebrated with cherry dishes, with the cherry claimed to be a favorite of his; Woodrow Wilson's 1896 "George Washington: A Profile" calls it a fabrication, after which almost all Am. historians follow suit; too bad, an old cherry is found growing in Ferry Farm in 1926, which is claimed to be the one, and further research indicates that the story might be true. He follows with The Life of General Francis Marion (1805), which does ditto for the Swamp Fox, The Life of Benjamin Franklin (1817), and The Life of William Penn (1819).