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The Sons of Liberty flag is very meaningful to us, as it’s the flag that inspired the backdrop of our logo. Its origins go back to 1765, when a secretive group of patriots known as “the Loyal Nine” was formed – the group behind the original Boston Tea Party. The flag was then known as “the Rebellious Stripes” and it was banned by the British king, the highest endorsement the Crown could give.

I'm having a promotion for a book I wrote and published (under pen name Lyle Wesley) on Amazon. The title is A Night that Saved Virginia. It is historical fiction based on a true event; a British attempt to capture Thomas Jefferson at Monticello when he was Governor of Virginia. The E-Book version is free on Amazon until March 18th. The Amazon link is https://a.co/d/4mDuwJF. Best Regards and Happy Sunday!

"Let us look back at Samuel Whittemore. Samuel was an old man -- seventy-eight years old, to be exact -- on April 19, 1775. After many years of service bearing arms for the British Crown, surely he was too old to fight, and his wife even told him so. On that fateful morning, though, he gathered up his musket, two pistols, and a cavalry saber that he acquired from a French officer who "died suddenly" and took his place to meet the British Regulars in Menotomy."

Why the right Self-Defense Tools and Tactics are Vital at any age On April 19, 1775, a man named Samuel Whittemore directly engaged the 47th Regiment of Foot. Armed with a musket, dueling pistols and a saber, Whittemore caused them to deploy by killing three and forced them to execute actions on contact. He in turn was shot in the face, bayoneted, beaten and then left for dead. These actions slowed the advance of the Regulars and assisted colonial forces in the area along Battle Road. Whittemore was 78 years old and lived despite his wounds. This article is about...

Graduation day at Navy Officer Candidate School was special. I felt more honored by that achievement than graduating from college, because then all Navy officer programs were meritocracies. The feeling was not diminished until I arrived at the Westchester County where I saw men with two or more stripes and two of more rows of ribbons, including the Silver Star and Bronze Star. That is when I knew I was in for a serious commitment.Fifty years later, after reading a library of eighteenth history books, I realized the gravity of commitment implied by the oath I said on that graduation...

A letter written by George Washington, providing rare understanding of his confidence in regular Americans to fight and win the revolutionary war, has been put up for sale on Presidents Day. The first US president penned the document as leader of the Continental Army in 1777, shortly after British forces ransacked a vital military supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut – a devastating action that fellow general Samuel Parsons wrote him was “an event very alarming to the country”. The handwritten reply, hidden from public view for decades in a private collection in New England, shows that Washington refused to consider...

Seventeen seventy-two, 1773, 1774, 1775 all came and went, and they had no idea they were living in capital-R Revolutionary times...until they did. They didn’t know we would come to revere them, these farmers, these doctors, these lawyers and tradesmen, as R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-A-R-I-E-S. No man knows that until it’s over. And even then, there’s no guarantee. History has to write that page, and only the fullness of time can confer such titles. I’ve long thought about how our forebears knew there was increasing trouble afoot (as we do now) but really didn’t know how big, how consequential those troubles were (as...

American Lawyer, political activist, colonial legislator, and early supporter of patriotic causes in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Coined the phrase "No taxation without representation".

What an important release this one is. Today, Benson Lossing's "Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of American Independence" is ready for a listen. This book has some really important sections in it which are not biographies at all, but a 1-by-1 explanation of what each grievance in the Declaration is in reference to. That makes this audio book surely one of a kind in that regard. As for the biographies, most as audio are inbetween 5 to 10 minutes, giving a brief overview of all of these wonderful people. Some Founding Fathers never received a major biographical...

I feel like we're actually leading a sort of a revival here. There comes a time when a vision is seen, and then only later on can that vision be shown to others because it has materialized in some meaningful way. Today I'm very happy to announce that Lorenzo Sears' biography of Founding Father John Hancock has been released for general use! John Hancock: The Picturesque PatriotNow be honest, how many of you actually know much at all about John Hancock, other than that he's that one guy who lived somewhere in a northern state and his autograph on the...

The Articles of association were passed on October 20, 1774, two hundred fifty years ago. While often overlooked, they are both a critical part of the story, and a window into the colonial mind, that would eventually lead into open rebellion.The Forgotten Foundational Document: The Articles of Association. | 15:21The History Guy | 1.47M subscribers | 88,369 views | October 21, 20241774 Articles of Association [PDF] | The Virginia Association

Religious Affiliation of the Signers of theDeclaration of Independence Religious Affiliation # ofsigners % ofsigners Episcopalian/Anglican 32 57.1% Congregationalist 13 23.2% Presbyterian 12 21.4% Quaker 2 3.6% Unitarian or Universalist 2 3.6% Catholic 1 1.8% TOTAL 56 100% Name of Signer State Religious Affiliation Charles Carroll Maryland Catholic Samuel Huntington Connecticut Congregationalist Roger Sherman Connecticut Congregationalist William Williams Connecticut Congregationalist Oliver Wolcott Connecticut Congregationalist Lyman Hall Georgia Congregationalist Samuel Adams Massachusetts Congregationalist John Hancock Massachusetts Congregationalist Josiah Bartlett New Hampshire Congregationalist William Whipple New Hampshire Congregationalist William Ellery Rhode Island Congregationalist John Adams Massachusetts Congregationalist; Unitarian Robert Treat Paine Massachusetts...

[23 Dec. 1783]Mr. PRESIDENT The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place; I have now the honor of offering my sincere Congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the Service of my Country. Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence. A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous...

Without them, there would be no United States of America: The Founding Fathers, a group of predominantly wealthy plantation owners and businessmen, united 13 disparate colonies, fought for independence from Britain and penned a series of influential governing documents that steer the country to this day. All the Founding Fathers, including the first four U.S. presidents, at one point considered themselves British subjects. But they revolted against the restrictive rule of King George III—outlining their grievances in the Declaration of Independence, a powerful (albeit incomplete) call for freedom and equality—and won a stunning military victory over what was then the...

Today is the 251st anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Most Americans know that some dudes dressed up like Indian's and tossed tea into the Boston Harbor to protest....stuff. However, there are a lot of fascinating things that happened leading up to this, and this post will tell the whole story. It's a long read, so grab some coffee like a REAL American and enjoy the tale... To understand the Boston Tea Party, you should understand the players involved. Player 1: We have British Parliament. They just fought the world's first actual global war. The Seven Years War. It spanned...

Benedict Arnold was an early hero of the Revolutionary War who later became one of the most infamous traitors in U.S. history. At the outbreak of the war, Arnold participated in the capture of the British garrison of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. In 1776, he hindered a British invasion of New York from Lake Champlain. The following year, he played a crucial role in bringing about the surrender of British General John Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga. Yet Arnold felt that he never received the recognition he deserved. In 1779, he entered into secret negotiations with the British, agreeing to turn...

A rare copy of the US Constitution that was found inside a filing cabinet sold for $9 million at auction this week. It took just seven minutes for the nearly 237-year-old document to clinch its hammer price, Andrew Brunk, the owner of Brunk Auctions, told CBS News. Most bids were placed over the phone, while two came in online and one buyer was at the North Carolina auction in person, Brunk said. The final price, including the buyer’s premium, was $11,070,000. The buyer will remain anonymous.

Sex, sexual ambiguity, race, incompetence, war mongering and foreign interventions. While those are familiar issues in 2024, they’re merely echoes of earlier times… like the election of 1800! The presidential campaign of 1800 was the sequel to the first truly contested American presidential election in 1796 and featured the same two primary players. John Adams won and Thomas Jefferson lost and became vice president – the only time in history that’s happened. Although friends, the men became viscous rivals – although never actually campaigning themselves – and the campaigns were as brutal as any seen in modern times. With the...

“I feel myself unequal to this business” confessed John Adams, of the “grand scene open before me—a Congress.” In the fall of 1774, Adams and 55 other delegates journeyed all manner of distances by foot, horseback and carriage to Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. Before now, few of “the wisest men upon the continent,” as Adams described the delegates in his diary, had ever left their colonies or collaborated with one another, but there was power in numbers—or, at least, they had seen there was weakness without them. In March 1774, British Parliament punished the Massachusetts colony for the...

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin) “Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin) “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin) “Common sense without education, is better than education without common sense.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin) “Moderation in all things – including moderation.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin) “Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.” ~ (Benjamin Franklin) “Remember...