Founding Fathers: The Great Awakening and the Growing Rebellion
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The promises disappear quickly. I, time, do not believe in promises. I believe in what lasts. Virtasen paint shop's plastic four-oil paint. Learned from the forces of nature. Prepared time and conditions to last on their terms. The best friend of Terveen Talo.
It's April 26th, 1770. We're in New York City. On Bowling Green, at the southern end of Broadway, the great and the good are out on show. Pillars of the community make small talk. Clergymen, politicians, entrepreneurs. They're all here, bustling around the park. With an estimated population of 25,000, the city is not yet the Big Apple. No yellow taxis roar up and down Broadway, just carriages, horses, and carts. Even so, in the late 18th century, New York is one of the biggest settlements on the continent, a gateway connecting the British colonies of North America with the wide world beyond. Today is a celebration of those global links and a chance to express what is supposedly in the hearts of all true patriots.
With the dignitaries in place, the ceremony begins. In the distance, a military band plays, the prelude to a succession of speeches. Next, a bone-jangling 32-gun salute blasts out. It's all because of a glimmering new addition to the New York landscape, a giant statue of the most beloved man in the city, His Majesty King George III of Great Britain. For more than 150 years, Britain's colonists in America have prided themselves on their devotion to the crown. Some say Americans love the monarch more than those in Great Britain itself. As New Yorkers toast the king's health, the colony's lieutenant governor looks with wonder at the statue, two tons of gilded lead, sparkling in the spring sunshine. It depicts the king as a Roman emperor sat on horseback,
At 15 feet high, it towers over everyone in its presence. For the lieutenant governor, it's artistic perfection. Nothing could better express America's undying love for King George and the British homeland. Fast forward six years, and New York pulses with a very different energy. On the night of July the 9th, 1776, dozens of men enter Bowling Green under cover of darkness. These are soldiers, part of a new Continental Army, a ragtag fighting force taking on the might of the British Empire. Earlier that day, they heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud.
How did New Yorkers publicly honor King George III in 1770 and why did that change by 1776?
Forget Long Live the King, George III is now public enemy number one. The soldiers clamber on top of the monarch's statue. They tie long, thick ropes around him and pull. Soon, the king is unbalanced. The statue comes crashing down. Now the butchery begins. His majesty is cut up limb by limb, his head hacked from his neck. Next, the lead is melted down. There's enough for 42,000 musket balls. All will be used to shoot the king's soldiers. The mightiest of them all has fallen. George III is in the scrapyard, a crook, a traitor, a tyrant. and the new nation is already building its own pantheon of great patriots. In time, they'll be known around the world as the Founding Fathers, the instigators of the American Revolution and the creators of the American Republic.
The names of the most famous Founding Fathers echo through history. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton. These are men of virtue. Their cause is freedom and justice for all. That, at least, is how the story goes. The truth is more complex. In this series, we'll bring you the epic tale of the birth of the United States of America. Using the Founding Fathers as our guides, we'll travel from the stirrings of revolution to the long and bloody fight for independence.
This is the heart and soul and guts of the American Revolution.
We'll witness the early years of the American Republic, an experiment that changed the world.
The concept that a government is by the people for the people was a radical and revolutionary idea in 1776. And I think it remains a radical and revolutionary idea.
Through the eyes of the founding fathers, we'll witness heroism and treachery, virtue and villainy. We'll bring the earliest years of the USA to life and explode historical myths.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:30
2
How did New Yorkers publicly honor King George III in 1770 and why did that change by 1776?
3:30–29:39
3
Who were the Founding Fathers and what myths surround their reputations?
29:39–52:08
4
How did Benjamin Franklin’s humble 1706 Boston origins shape his early life?
52:08–59:14