1692, Salem, Massachusetts: A community in meltdown. Mankind: The Story of All of Us IX: Pioneers
A new kind of nation is formed: government for the people by the people – democracy. Mankind: The Story of All of Us X: Revolutions
America’s four million slaves gain their freedom: the Union wins the Civil War. ibid.
Richmond, Virginia, April 1865: The climax of the American Civil War. Union troops close in on the Confederate capital. Mankind: The Story of All of Us XI
600,000 Americans dead. More than in World Wars I and II combined. ibid.
Four out of five factories are in the North. ibid.
Beings have invaded planet Earth many many times. All over the United States ancient oral traditions of sky-gods or aliens persist. At conferences organised by American shamans legends of aliens who gave mankind knowledge of genetics are spoken about openly ... Shaman elders speak of beings from the stars called the Bak’Ti who invaded planet Earth before dinosaurs existed. Chris Everard, Secret Space II
The Ohio Serpent Mound is a symbolic representation of sperm fertilising an egg in the womb ... Who gave shamans knowledge of genetics centuries ago? ibid.
According to Shaman legends the ancient Bak’Ti genetically manipulated animals and created mankind. The Bak’Ti aliens told early man that they were here to control the development of civilisation and that there were many other aliens who wanted to invade planet Earth. According to American shamans the Bak’Ti aliens have been known both as gods and devils throughout the evolution of man. ibid.
Shamans teach that the Bak’Ti were gods of the stars who have often destroyed evidence of man’s real history in order to keep mankind ignorant and controllable. The oral traditions of the North American Indians teach us that the Bak’Ti star-gods eventually lost control of planet Earth to another race of aliens who were vicious reptiles with faces of dragons. ibid
The United States of America: Once nothing more than four million square miles of wilderness. Today it is home to over 330 million people. It dominates the world with its military might and financial power. And its influence can be felt in every corner of the globe. A Big History of America, Channel 5 2020
1492 when Christopher Columbus first caught site of the New World. As Europeans mastered the oceans, others sailed in Columbus’s wake. The Spanish were the first to establish a permanent settlement in what we now know as Florida; the French soon followed, but the British were in hot pursuit. ibid.
By 1860 America’s slave population had reached nearly four million, resulting in an incredible explosion of the country’s financial power. ibid.
America was now brutally divided over racial grounds. Intimidation and violence were used to prevent African-Americans going about their daily lives, and even from exercising their constitutional right to vote. ibid.
Washington is without doubt the greatest hero in American history but he is a stranger. Washington I: Loyal Subject, historian, History 2021
I see a husband and I see a slave-holder. ibid.
Despite all his flaws Washington is the one man that made this country possible. ibid.
In 1754 the man who would one day become the father of his country is an American colonist wearing British red. He’s in command for the first time on a mission to serve his king, George II. Washington’s here to help the British empire defend it’s claim on a strategic piece of the frontier: The Forks where three rivers meet will one day be called Pittsburgh. But now the Ohio country is land claimed by both Britain and France and the native nations who live there. ibid. commentary
He’s determined to become a British officer … When the French and their native allies strike, they hit with overwhelming firepower … 22-year-old George Washington is confronting the inexperience of his years in command. ibid.
But the British battle losses are severe: In just three hours of fighting, nearly 1,000 of some 1,500 troops are either killed or wounded including 63 officers. ibid.
By the spring of 1756 the American frontier is a war zone as the French employ their Native American allies to ramp up attacks on British settlers. ibid.
Washington resigns never again to wear British colours … He begins with a political win. ibid.
Martha brings to the marriage several thousand acres of land along with 84 enslaved people who make it all run. ibid.
In 1763 a new royal proclamation poses a direct threat to Washington’s investments: to avoid another expensive war on the frontier King George III bans colonists from buying or settling land in the west. ibid.
Followed by a slew of new taxes: taxes that will help the British pay off its debts. ibid.
The following spring Washington’s fears are realised at Lexington and Concord. ibid.
It wasn’t a trained army; it was a militia. ibid. Powell
At age 44 George Washington has control of an army. And some success as a general. He managed to outlast the British in Boston but the stand-off ended without a head to head battle. Now, more than a year into the war, he is preparing his still untested army to take on the British in New York. Washington II
Washington doesn’t have funds for weapons, food or for uniforms. And he’s running out of time. A massive armada of British warships under orders from King George III is on its way to the colonies to intimidate the rebels into stepping down. ibid.
Washington has been ordered by Congress to defend New York at all costs. But the entire continental army has just 121 cannons to counter the thousands on board the British warships heading their way. ibid.
The colonies have declared their independence. But if the Americans want their freedom, they’ll have to bleed for it. ibid.
Washington loses nearly one-fifth of his army in two days of fighting. ibid.
He and his 2,400 men are now on their own … ‘The stakes are unimaginably high; the snow is coming down, the wind is whipping, they’re freezing but they have nothing else left. They will either prevail of they will die’: Trenton, New Jersey, December 26 1776. ibid.
He [Arnold] stands to earn £20,000, a lifetime pension and a British officer’s commission if he can deliver West Point. Which he plans to achieve by sabotaging the fort’s defences from within. ibid.
After six long years the British are striking directly at the heart of the patriot cause in a bid to finally end the war. At the tip of the spear is the man who nearly took down the continental army with an act of betrayal. The turncoat Benedict Arnold is now a Brigadier-General army officer on the front lines of their latest strategy to crush the rebel spirit and rouse a loyal army to fight the patriots. Washington III
The French have been allied to America since early 1778, and while they have a fleet and more than 5,000 troops stationed in New England they have yet to join. ibid.
Mutiny is tearing apart the army that George Washington is struggling to hold together through six years of war. ibid.
In the years immediately after the revolution the young country is in turmoil. The thirteen states are bound together under the article of the Confederation, but while the pact allows Congress to enact laws, it has no power to enforce them. And there’s no consensus among the states about how to run the government. ibid.
In the spring of 1789 the Founding Fathers call on delegates from the thirteen states to meet in Philadelphia. ibid.
‘Integrity and firmness is all I can promise.’ ibid. Washington
More than two years into Washington’s first term the people are rising up over a new tax on whisky, one the president signed into law. ibid.
Then in one notorious incident the tormented Redcoats opened fire before the Statehouse; five Bostonians were left dead on the street. Shocked by the killings over the next three years both sides let things calm down. Eventually the British dropped all their taxes except one: that on tea. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s2e4: The Wrong Empire, BBC 2001
It would be a war fought not just with muskets but with words and ideals. ibid.
It would take George Washington, now commander of the American forces, seven years of bloody fighting before independence became a reality. ibid.
Jefferson was in his marrow a Virginia gentleman and farmer philosopher. The American Future: A History by Simon Schama 2/4, BBC 2008
Between July 1st and 3rd 1863 Quartermaster General Meig’s war machine met its greatest test when it clashed with Robert E Lee’s confederate troops in and around the town of Gettysburg. ibid.
Teddy Roosevelt had made it in politics by presenting himself as a man of the modern age. ibid.
Mark Twain found himself censored. His anti-war articles went unpublished. ibid.
There are some stories so big, stories tell us who we are and what we’ve become, we can’t believe they ever got away, vanished from the history books. But then I had no clue about this story myself: escaped American slaves who fought for King George, not George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War, who flocked to the British flag, thousands of them. Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings, BBC 2018
The British made the slaves an offer: come over to our side and we’ll give you your freedom. From all over Slave America, thousands took up the offer and became fugitives. ibid.