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On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, Governor Dunmore ordered seamen and marines from the HMS Magdalen to seize the gunpowder stored in Williamsburg’s Powder Magazine. Sources: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/the-gunpowder-incident/; https://www.revwartalk.com/04-20-1775-battles-gunpowder-affair-in-williamsburg-virginia/https://250andcounting.com/; https://daybydayamerica.com/day-by-day/year-1775/april-20-1775/ Tonight and tomorrow night, April 20 and 21, 2025, Colonial Williamsburg is reenacting the Gunpowder Incident at the Powder Magazine where it happened…
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On this day 250 years ago at Lexington and Concord, and at Menotomy (now Arlington), Cambridge, Charlestown and every mile between, the first battle of the Revolutionary War was fought. The battle started before daybreak on the Lexington Commons where the badly outnumbered Lexington Militia, only 60 or 70 men, were defeated by the vanguard…
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On this day 250 years ago, the Concord militia received and began executing the order of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety instructing that certain ammunition and supplies stored in Concord be removed from the town or hidden. That order was issued just in time, because on that same day in Boston, General Gage ordered Lt.…
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On this day 250 years ago in New York City, John Jay on behalf of the New York Committee of Sixty wrote to the New Haven, Connecticut Committee: Notwithstanding a small Majority of our House of Assembly have taken no notice of the Proceedings of the Congress the People in general are zealous in the Cause. A…
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On this day 250 years ago Isaiah Thomas, publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, smuggled his printing press out of Boston with the assistance of Timothy Bigelow and Joseph Warren. Thomas removed his press and paper to Bigelow’s home in the Patriot stronghold of Worcester were it would be safe from seizure by the British Army.…
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On this day 250 years ago in Alexandria, Virginia, George Washington drilled the Fairfax Militia. Source: “[Diary entry: 15 April 1775],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-03-02-0005-0008-0015. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 3, 1 January 1771–5 November 1781, ed. Donald Jackson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978, p. 321.] accessed at https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2215%20April%201775%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=1&sr= On this day 250 years…
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On this day 250 years ago, the HMS Nautilus docked in Boston carrying a secret dispatch for General Gage from London. The letter was written by William Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the American Colonies. Dartmouth criticized Gage’s ineffective response to “proceedings that amounted to actual revolt” and informed him that…
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On this day 250 years ago in Wilmington, the North Carolina Light Dragoons was formed as part of the Province’s militia. Source: https://www.revwartalk.com/corps-of-north-carolina-light-dragoons/ On this day 250 years ago in Concord, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress directed the Committee of Safety to form six companies of artillery. Sources: The Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts…
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On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts Governor Gage wrote to Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina that This Province has some time been, and now is, in the new-fangled Legislature, termed a Provincial Congress, who seem to have taken the Government into their hands. Source: https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/april-12-1775-gen-thomas-gage-hopes-madness-wears/ On that day in Groton, Massachusetts,…
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On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rev. John Eliot wrote that “it is now too late to think of any other method of obtaining redress than by the dint of the sword.” Source: Norton at 337. On that day in Boston, John Andrews wrote that we are all in confusion at present,…
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On This Day In The Revolution 