History Channel Presents Laughably Inaccurate 'Sons of Liberty'

NewsBusters ^ | January 26, 2015 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Okay, it wasn't quite as bad as "Sam Adams: Vampire Hunter" but it was close. I am referring to the History channel's series "The Sons of Liberty" in which the real life Sam Adams, who was a middle-aged portly guy by the time of the opening scene in 1765, comes off as a young athletic urban ninja hopping up to the rooftops of Boston to evade arrest by British troops. And that was just one of the many laughable inaccuracies of the History channel's presentation of the era leading up to the American Revolution.

Although one can easily get the sense that history was often left by the wayside just by watching it, several websites have pointed out the numerous historical inaccuracies of the series. Journal of the American Revolution is among those sites listing the many, many inaccuracies of this series. For the sake of brevity, we shall only look at the glaring errors of only the first episode:

[yarddog]

I did the exact same thing except I only lasted 5 minutes.

I had intended to watch it but got caught up in watching something else. After that program went off I was scanning channels and came across it. It didn’t take long at all before I just switched to something else.

[JennysCool]

hopping up to the rooftops of Boston

Mark Twain hopped from rooftop to rooftop for sport as a (crazy) young man in Virginia City, Nevada

[Buckeye McFrog]

I found it a safe assumption that if its on the History Channel, it’s not history.

I suppose we're just lucky if it does not include aliens or the open slander of Christianity.

[Bucky14]

I am waiting for the Global Warming reference and the mention that the 2nd Amendment is about hunting.

[ozzymandus]

Actually, the commercials made me want to miss it, and I did.

[oh8eleven]

Actually, the commercials made me want to miss it ...
That's another reason not to watch. You get 7 or 8 minutes of TV show, then 4 minutes of commercials.
After a couple of cycles you can't remember WTH you watched because of all the damned commercials.

[UB355]

I’m in agreement. I watched the first hour. The HBO series John Adams is still my favorite.

[Slings and Arrows]

I heard it happened a lot after the most recent Beowulf movie, too.

[Slyfox]

The middle age of a 60 year old is 30.

[pfflier]

The portrayal of John Hancock as a psycopathic metrosexual wasn’t exactly great either.

[AZLiberty]

I’m so old I remember when the History Channel showed history.

[SueRae]

hahaha...give it time..

[AnAmericanMother]

Not really seein' it . . .

(Copley's portrait of ol' Sam)

The guy on the beer label is loosely based on the Copley portrait of Paul Revere, with a foaming mug substituted for the iconic silver teapot.

They've revised him a couple of times, so he doesn't look nearly as much like Paul as he originally did.

[Terry L Smith]

Gee Thanks!

I have it on the dvr, but haven’t seen it yet.

You, in your literary comments, have ‘done the dog’ for the rest of us!

[Vaquero]

still can’t get over the fact that it’s an 18th. century drama overlaid with 20th. century rock-and-roll music from The Rolling Stones, a BRITISH band.

No.....so far just the commercials played ‘paint it black’

[Vaquero]

Thoroughly enjoyable.

I recommend it.

[Vaquero]

The animal and the excrement was invented by then. And one Irishman pronounced the second word with a brogue.

[AU72]

Can’t wait to see how they hash-up the Boston Tea Party.

[AnAmericanMother]

Earliest use of the term is 1915 (the words “air” and “plane” existed in the 17th century but weren’t combined until much more recently).

[AnAmericanMother]

Forgot to add that Sam was a bad boy. His cousin John did some serious covering for him in the Boston Massacre trial, or there would have been a warrant or two out for him.