Revolutionary War reenactments have taken place for centuries

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

New York was a hotbed of early revolutionary activity

In the decade before independence, New York City saw Stamp Act riots, liberty pole confrontations, the 1770 Battle of Golden Hill, and defiance of the Quartering Act, and organized efforts to block and destroy taxed British tea.

Shays' rebellion pitted rebel veterans against the Revolution's leaders

The Revolutionary War led to independence and significant debt for most states. In 1786, a group of veterans and farmers from western Massachusetts protested against the state government’s increased taxes. Led by Daniel Shays, the group attempted to capture an armory in Springfield but failed.

The American War of Independence included over 1,500 military engagements

Several hundred of these were major battles like Yorktown, Saratoga, and Bunker’s Hill. This interactive map shows the locations of key locations of the conflict, highlighting major factors in each battle and their outcome.

Some colonies were centuries-old before they broke from Britain

The revolution did not happen overnight, but was a culmination of centuries of settlement, policies, and war in North America. This timeline provides key, fascinating events from the 1600s through the Revolution in a smooth, easy-to-read interface.

Watch Ken Burns' documentary series on the American Revolution

In "The American Revolution," filmmaker Ken Burns presents the conflict as both a global war and a civil war, telling its story through the lives of soldiers, civilians, enslaved people, Native nations, and international allies.

Americans celebrated the end of the Revolutionary War with nationwide toasts

In 1783, citizens celebrated the signing of the Preliminary Articles of Peace with nationwide parties. Across the new country, many made 13 toasts to the 13 states. They also drank to George Washington. One poet in Boston wrote, “Health to his honor I’d freely drink, Had I a glass of wine; And whosoever with me shall think, May mix their toast with mine.”

The oldest restaurants in the US

This list features several establishments that have been around since before the Declaration of Independence, including the White Horse Tavern, in Newport, Rhode Island, and New York's Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington dismissed his troops at the end of the Revolutionary War.

At age 22, Washington inadvertently started the French and Indian War

In 1754, while leading a small Virginia militia force in the Ohio Valley, Washington's troops ambushed a French scouting party. The clash heightened tensions between Britain and France and sparked a broader conflict that soon spread across North America, Europe, and parts of Africa and Asia.

Emanuel Leutze's painting 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' is one of the defining images of the Revolutionary War

The scene depicts George Washington leading Continental forces across the icy Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776, enabling a surprise attack on British-paid mercenary troops at Trenton. This risky maneuver revived the revolution after months of defeat.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Debunking myths about the American Revolution

The history of the American Revolution and the establishment of democracy are proudly taught in the US, but a number of incorrect details continue to be circulated. This article debunks some of the myths that persist in the public consciousness, like the idea that the war was solely driven by taxes or that Paul Revere was the only rider warning the rebels about the British.

The first Boston Marathon was held the next year

In 1897, the manager of the US Olympic team organized the first Boston Marathon, which featured a field of 15 runners. The race took place on Patriots Day, a holiday commemorating the first battles of the American Revolution.

The earliest known play performed in the US was 'The Recruiting Officer'

A London troupe performed a comedy called "The Recruiting Officer" in New York City in 1732.

Guerilla warfare was a significant part of the success of the Americans

Francis Marion, also known as the Swamp Fox, was a Patriot general who used guerrilla warfare tactics in the Carolinas during the Revolutionary War’s southern campaigns. Also called “maneuver warfare,” the approach focuses on disorienting the enemy and exploiting their weaknesses while avoiding their strengths.

European colonists encountered barbecue by the 16th century

They called the food “barbacoa” and spread the technique throughout their territories, including the American colonies. The first recorded mention in English appeared in John Lederer’s travelogue of Virginia and the Carolinas in 1672.

The highest inflation in US history was estimated at 30% in 1778

This was just after the Revolutionary War. Both World Wars also brought double-digit inflation. It's worth noting that exact inflation rates in early America are difficult to calculate precisely.

One of the earliest Memorial Day ceremonies was held by newly freed Black Americans in South Carolina

On May 1, 1865, roughly 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around a Charleston racetrack where Union prisoners had been buried, predating the first national commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery by three years.

Paul Revere rode to Concord to warn rebel leaders of British attack

Revere was a well-known Boston messenger and an excellent horseman, known as a reliable relayer of messages. As Boston’s patriot leaders spread out into the areas around the city in fear of British arrest, Revere turned his skills to aid the revolutionary moment.

The first test of America's war powers came just a decade after the Constitution was ratified

During the undeclared Quasi-War with France in 1800, the Supreme Court ruled in Bas v. Tingy that Congress had authorized a valid "imperfect war" through statutes alone, without a formal declaration, establishing that there is a legal spectrum between peace and declared war.

Americans touring the Louvre were inspired to create their own grand museums

The one-time royal residence was first transformed into a public museum in 1793 amid the French Revolution. Americans visiting in the early 1800s were both turned off by the aristocratic grandeur and compelled by the open access to the public. James Fenimore Cooper, the author of "The Last of the Mohicans," apparently came and measured the length of galleries.

Read the only surviving eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving

Edward Winslow’s short 1621 letter offers the only firsthand account of the first Thanksgiving, describing celebratory gunfire that drew Wampanoag leader Massasoit and 90 men—initially fearing conflict—before the gathering turned into shared feasting.

Lego stop motion reenacts the longest battle in World War I

One of the longest and bloodiest battles of World War I, the Battler of Verdun was a deadly conflict between French and German forces for 10 months in 1916. Some 300,000 lives were lost, but ultimately the French triumphed. This video provides a stop-motion reenactment of the battle in Lego bricks.

The Civil War introduced many technological advances to both society and warfare

The conflict accelerated innovations—including railroads, telegraphs, ironclad ships, and mass-produced weapons—while advances in photography, medicine, and manufacturing transformed how Americans communicated, healed, and built after the war.

Hamilton's formal education was cut short by the Revolutionary War

Enrolled at King's College, Alexander Hamilton planned to graduate in just a few years, racing through an intense curriculum, before the Revolutionary War interrupted his studies and he joined a New York volunteer militia.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

Puebla holds an annual battle reenactment on Cinco de Mayo

Each May 5, the city of Puebla marks the anniversary with festivals and a full military reenactment of the 1862 battle. While Cinco de Mayo is barely observed elsewhere in Mexico, it remains a ceremonial source of local pride in the state where the battle was actually fought.

Catalonia and the War of the Spanish Succession

The War of Spanish Succession (1702-1715) was an international and civil war that reshaped Europe’s political landscape and brought Catalonia under Spanish rule. Created by the Museum of the History of Catalonia in Barcelona, this virtual exhibit guides readers through the 13-year war with a specific eye for its effects on Catalonia. Galleries of artwork from the period on the right-hand side of the page help immerse visitors in the history.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.