battle. Sensing the rebellion in the American colonies was still a regional

flare up of hostilities, General John Burgoyne set off to slice North America

in two. In what would be called the Saratoga Campaign, 10,000 British soldiers

invaded the colony of New York from their base in Quebec and seemed all but unstoppable.

But, in a dramatic turn of fortunes the Patriot commander Horatio Gates

defeated Burgoyne and gave the fledgling revolution new life at the battles of

Saratoga that fall. The consequences would be drastic, and the small

insurrection that began in Boston would soon spread across the globe. On this

episode we discuss the 1777: The Year of the Hangman.