250 and Counting

With all the things we know about germ theory and diseases and the importance of vaccinations, it’s kind of a surprise when people take a stance against such things in the face of the hard data. Before the invention of the smallpox vaccine, the disease could have a brutal effect on people who caught it, … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 26, 1775

In this episode you’re going to learn a bunch of things about the general geography of the Bronx, and how some places got their names. It’s actually interesting enough that may have to take some cameras up there and show you just how much the area has changed, and not just in a “what was … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 25, 1775

The Minutemen are among the more romantic images that many people have of the Revolution. Around this time in 1975, the comic strip Doonesbury did a couple of series that were set in the Revolutionary War days. They focused on an ancestor of Zonker’s named Nate Harris, who was a Minuteman. In one strip, Paul … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 24, 1775

Awhile back we talked about a Loyalist who wrote an opinion piece under the pen name “Massachusettensis” (which we may have mocked a little bit but it’s just the Latin word for the Colony/State). His rhetoric angered John Adams to the point where he felt compelled to respond in kind, and he did so using … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 23, 1775

It’s Cake and Candles today for Abraham Henry Schenck, State Assemblyman and then Congressman from New York State. But despite being from New York, and being a member of Congress, during his tenure as State Assemblyman he had something going on back at home. It wasn’t common in New York, but it wasn’t unheard of—nor … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 22, 1775

As we’ve noted a few times, the Colonists in general didn’t want war with Britain; in fact most of them were pretty sure they were going to get wiped out should it come to that. Even our most famous Patriots of the time, such as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others, spent enormous … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 21, 1775

Note: we inadvertently posted the January 20 episode yesterday. That episode has been replaced with the correct one, so if you want to hear the real January 19th episode, scroll down to the previous post and listen “again.” Apologies for the error and any confusion. It’s Cake and Candles today for André-Marie Ampère. He was … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 20, 1775

Most people (we think) have this popular notion of American history involving the British imposing taxes and massacreing people in Boston and the Colonists responding with an indignant “Oh, we need to dump some tea and write a Declaration of Independence and take up arms and shoot those red-coated monsters right now!” But if you’ve … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 19, 1775

When the Provincial Congress of Georgia met in the city of Savannah, the natural place for them to meet was a place called Tondee’s Tavern. Georgians were no fans of British activities such as the Intolerable Acts, but they otherwise prospered under British rule and remained largely indifferent to the mother country. However, while the … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 18, 1775

In the early 1770s, the American colonies began feeling the need to defend themselves against British pressures. In some cases the activity was political, but there were plenty of people who saw that there could conceivably be a need to take up arms at some point, especially given the way they interpreted the Intolerable Acts. … Continue reading 250 and Counting: January 17, 1775