When did the fighting of the American War for Independence end? In school we learn that the war came to an end at Yorktown. But, this lesson omits all of the fighting that took place after Charles, Earl Cornwallis’ surrender in October 1781. Today...
Most early Americans practiced chattel slavery: the practice of treating slaves as property that people could buy, sell, trade, and use as they would draught animals or real estate. But, did you know that some early Americans practiced a different...
Did George Washington really start the French and Indian War? Why should we remember a battle that took place over 260 years ago? Today, we investigate the answers to those questions as we explore the Battle of the Monongahela with David Preston...
Located 600 miles from Philadelphia and over 700 miles from Québec City, early Detroit could have been a backwater, a frontier post that Europeans established to protect colonial settlements from Native American attacks. Yet Detroit emerged as a...
Did Canada almost join the American Revolution? In September 1775, Major-General Philip Schuyler launched the Patriot’s invasion into Canada. The Patriots hoped to end the threat of a British invasion from the north by occupying Canada and bringing...
Who was the Marquis de Lafayette? How did he make the Patriots’ success in the American Revolution possible? And why did a group known as the Friends of Hermione-Lafayette in America build an exact replica of the French frigate that brought...
Parlez-vous Français? Do you speak French? Believe it or not, in the 1790s many Americans spoke French. They may not have spoken the French language, but they understood and embraced French culture, art, and culinary traditions. Early Americans...