The American Revolution, Explained

Sobre a série

A two-voice illustrated explainer of the American Revolution (1763 to 1783) for A2+ learners. In five short episodes, two hosts ask why the colonists turned against Britain, how the war started, why they declared independence, how an army of farmers survived, and who lost when it ended. Each episode answers one question and ends on a surprise.

Os episódios (5)

1. 1

   Why Were the Colonists Angry?

   Between 1763 and 1774, British colonists in America turned against their own king. The obvious answer is "too many taxes", but colonists paid far less tax than people in Britain, and the 1773 Tea Act made tea cheaper. The anger was about who had the right to decide: colonists elected their own assemblies but had nobody in Parliament, and Parliament said it could make laws for them "in all cases whatsoever". The two hosts follow the steps from the Seven Years' War debt to the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party and the punishment of Boston in 1774.

   6:28
2. 2

   How Did the War Start?

   In April 1775 the argument of episode 1 turned into shooting. The British army in Boston, on orders from London, marched to Concord to take the colonists' guns; riders warned the towns; on Lexington Green someone fired a shot, and nobody knows who. By June the colonies' militias surrounded Boston, the British won a costly battle at Bunker Hill (on Breed's Hill), and Congress chose George Washington to lead one army for all the colonies. Then the two sides raced to tell Britain their story, and the colonists' little ship won.

   4:54
3. 3

   Why Did They Declare Independence?

   In 1775 the colonists in America still said they were loyal to the king; one year later they voted to leave Britain. The door closed from London: King George the Third called them rebels and Parliament in London cut off their trade, and in January 1776 a cheap little book, Common Sense, written by a man who had arrived from England only a year before, told them they did not need a king at all. Congress voted for independence on 2 July 1776 and approved the words of the Declaration on 4 July. Its most famous sentence says "all men are created equal", but its writer, Thomas Jefferson, enslaved people, and in 1776 those words did not include everyone. Later, many people used the same words to ask for equal rights.

   4:55
4. 4

   How Could Farmers Fight the World's Strongest Army?

   Between 1776 and 1778, George Washington lost more big battles than he won, yet his army was still there in 1778 and Britain was fighting France too. The answer is that Washington's aim was to keep the army alive, not to win every battle. A small surprise win at Trenton kept it together; a big American win at Saratoga brought France into the war; and a hard winter at Valley Forge, with a German teacher who spoke no English, turned volunteers into trained soldiers. The two hosts follow the army from the loss of New York to the summer of 1778.

   4:44
5. 5

   How Did It End, and Who Lost?

   In October 1781, American and French forces trapped a British army at Yorktown, in Virginia, and a French fleet stopped any help arriving by sea. Two years later, the Treaty of Paris made Britain accept the United States as an independent country. But not everyone in America won. Tens of thousands of Loyalists, colonists who stayed with the king, left for Canada and elsewhere; Native nations, most of them allies of Britain, were not part of the treaty that gave their land to the new country; and for many enslaved people, the promise of freedom came from the British side. The two hosts tell how the war ended and look at it from London, from the new United States, and from the people the peace left out.

   5:02