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On this day in 1783, the British finally evacuate New York, which had been their headquarters during the American Revolution. Maybe you won’t be surprised to hear that the British took one last stab at insulting Americans before they left? They hoisted the Union Jack up a flagpole and greased the pole. The grease would make it difficult for Americans to switch out the flag for one of their own. A young sailor, John Van Arsdale, was undeterred. He put on some cleats and climbed that greased pole! He was bound and determined to switch out the flag before General...

The British weren't coming — the British were gone. That was the message Gen. George Washington communicated to the newly independent nation 226 years ago, on Nov. 25, 1783, the day Washington officially "took back" Manhattan from the British. Without benefit of Paul Revere or Western Union, the victorious general relied on burning beacons set along the Hudson Highlands to celebrate the day, now known as Evacuation Day. On Nov. 25 of this year, the memory of those beacons and the message they brought to the country will be invoked along the same hilltops by a variety of historical groups...

On November 25, 2008, to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the evacuation of the United States of America by British troops, the Palisades Parks Conservancy, in collaboration with the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, Scenic Hudson, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and Palisades Interstate Park Commission will symbolically light five beacon sites that replicate the original signal locations used by the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. These vital systems summoned the militia in both New York and in neighboring New Jersey and warned residents of the approaching British Redcoats. The types of...