250 and Counting

Jeez, I gotta stop writing these titles late at night. Sometimes the history books make it sound like some people just appeared out of nowhere, but they did have pasts. George Washington would be a good example. Washington has been nearly invisible since this show started on January 1, but that doesn’t mean that the […]

The post June 15, 1775: The Original G-Man appeared first on 250 and Counting.

No tongue-in-cheek for today. No weird jokes. No political stances. Just thanks for giving us America, and then helping us keep it. In today’s episode, Mike takes you back to the first day.

The post June 14, 1775: Cake and Candles for the US Army appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It wasn't even close to being the first time, but this was an important "get": the colonist forces learned that troops were coming to capture Charlestown and Dorchester in an effort to break the siege. They got lucky, it all led to some ugliness and eventually both sides could call it a win, and both […]

The post June 13, 1775: Colonists Catch Wise…Again appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The folks in America wanted to ensure that the folks in Canada knew just how bad the conditions were, but the problem was that most of the regular inhabitants of Canada spoke French, so when the Continental Congress created documents meant to sway the Canadians to our side of the loyalty fence, they were written […]

The post June 12, 1775: Press One for English appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Full Disclosure: I have no idea whether I pronounced “Machias” correctly. We’ll all have to live with that one, I suppose. The Battle of Machias was not exactly one of epic proportions. It was a couple of boats chasing after a couple of other boats, and one boat got away but the other one managed […]

The post June 11, 1775: The Battle of Machias appeared first on 250 and Counting.

In the wake of Lexington and Concord, some places didn’t wait to start assembling troops to fight off the British. Most of them were in that part of the Colonies, though. Enter the Berkeley County Riflemen, from a section of Virginia that is now West Virginia. George Washington put out the word that soldiers were […]

The post June 10, 1775: The Berkeley Riflemen appeared first on 250 and Counting.

We’ve spent all our time on the East Coast; let’s take a side quest to the West Coast to see what the Spanish are up to. We have two main players here: Bruno de Heceta, after whom at least two locations on the West Coast are named (and they’re pronounced differently, go figure), and Juan […]

The post June 9, 1775: Exploring the West Coast appeared first on 250 and Counting.

In the aftermath of the Gunpowder Incident, Lord Dunmore decided that the better part of valor involved getting out of town before the locals could get a good lynch mob together, and he left Virginia on the HMS Fowey. Here’s the interesting part: the Fowey which Dunmore boarded was not the first of its name; […]

The post June 8, 1775: Lord Dunmore Checks Out appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Second Continental Congress was in full swing by now. The first committees are beginning to report out to the Congress. New committees are being created for various purposes. The Congress is meeting as a group to determine the state of America. And one committee is recruited to draft a proclamation that, to modern ears, […]

The post June 7, 1775: Just Another Day In Congress appeared first on 250 and Counting.

We’ve mentioned the Willett family in prior episodes. They were a prominent family at the east end of Long Island, and in what we’d now call the Queens portion of New York City, at a time when there wasn’t a whole lot of much else between the two. There are some landmarks around Long Island […]

The post June 6, 1775: A Disarming Guy in New York City appeared first on 250 and Counting.