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On this day 250 years ago at the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Dr. Joseph Warren delivers the annual speech on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Warren’s stirring address included these lines that nearly provoked a riot that night in the streets of Boston: Our fathers having nobly resolved never to wear the…
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On this day 250 years ago at Mount Vernon, Virginia, Richard Henry Lee visited George Washington. Two months later both men were traveling together to join the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Source: “[Diary entry: 5 March 1775],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0005-0005. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 3, 1 January 1771–5 November 1781, ed. Donald…
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On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Samuel Adams wrote to Arthur Lee that the Continental Association and other resolutions of the Continental Congress, although styled as voluntary, were considered “Laws” and “are more observed throughout this Continent than any human Laws whatsoever.” He also wrote that the British army has been sickly throughout…
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On this day 250 years in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Virginia Gazette published this warning about the Royal Navy’s plans to intercept the goods Patriots were attempting to smuggle into America in lieu of the legal goods from Britain the Patriots were boycotting in adherence to the Continental Association: A Caution of the Publick. Be it…
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On this day 250 years ago in Providence, Rhode Island, the Town Crier announced: At four of the Clock this Afternoon a Quantity of India Tea will be burnt in the Market Place. All true friends of the Country, Lovers of Freedom and Haters of Shackles and Hand-cuffs, are hereby invited to testify their good…
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On this day 250 years ago, the Continental Association’s Non-Consumption Agreement whereby the Patriots committed that they would “not purchase or use any East India Tea whatsoever; nor will we, nor shall any person for or under us, purchase or use any of those Goods, Wares, or Merchandises” imported from Britain, went into effect. Sources: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/the-tea-crisis/; https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Continental_Association…
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On this day 250 years ago in Milton, Massachusetts, the Suffolk County Convention of delegates from Boston and surrounding towns met. The Convention adopted a resolution that because “the civil government of the Province is not yet placed upon a constitutional foundation,” taxes from Boston and the surrounding towns should be paid to the Treasurer…
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On this day 250 years ago in London, Parliament passed Lord North’s “Conciliatory Resolution.” Although it promised to revoke taxes on any Colony that agreed to tax itself, the American revolution had become about much more than taxes and it would arrive in the Colonies only after Lexington and Concord. This was too little too…
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On this day 250 years ago in Salem, Massachusetts, Patriot militia confronted a detachment of the British Army in an event that is now called the “Salem Gunpowder Raid” or “Leslie’s Retreat.” This raid almost, but did not, start the Revolutionary War. Colonel Alexander Leslie sailed on the HMS Lively with a detachment of approximately…
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On this day 250 years ago from Mount Vernon, Virginia, George Washington wrote to Governor Dunmore’s agent John Connolly at Fort Pitt: With us here, things wear a disagreeable aspect; and the minds of men are exceedingly disturbed at the measures of the British government. The King’s Speech and Address of both Houses, prognosticate nothing…
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On This Day In The Revolution 