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Interesting Facts I learned watching Ken Burn's Revolutionary War

Fact #1. Boston used to be an island. Backbay was literall...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  11/29/25
huh. did they have a lot of little bridges back then? or ho...
mildly autistic pozpig giraffe
  11/30/25
There was one isthmus, so had the British come by land they ...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
...
mildly autistic pozpig giraffe
  12/01/25
yeah massive infill with trash and whatever else surprise...
Blitzen Did Nothing Wrong
  12/25/25
...
bateful disrespectful ticket booth brethren
  11/29/25
Fact #2: Initially, only free blacks were allowed to join th...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  11/29/25
yer an idiot if you believe that’s why they didn&rsquo...
contagious temple
  11/30/25
What’s the real reason? They let them in very shortly...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
if you're a wealthy tea merchant or spice trader astroturfin...
contagious temple
  12/01/25
Underrrated
Twinkling Motley Public Bath
  12/01/25
Sup, Noam
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/02/25
Fact #3: Early in the war the Continental Congress tried to ...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  11/30/25
Wow all this shit about black people sounds really important...
Maize Site Queen Of The Night
  11/30/25
If not for blacks we would have conquered Canada.
Topaz supple toaster base
  11/30/25
I see what you did there. I doff my cap to you, sir.
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
This should not be a new learned fact. The U.S. fought the W...
Excitant location hairy legs
  11/30/25
XO Jackson would have words about that.
Brindle domesticated stead gay wizard
  11/30/25
Trump is gonna finish the job
Blitzen Did Nothing Wrong
  12/25/25
Fact #4: Lord Dunmore declared that any slave owned by a reb...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  11/30/25
I thought the idea backfired when they all caught smallpox
Nighttime Pisswyrm University
  11/30/25
All soldiers of all races suffered badly from small pox. An...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
Update: At the end of 1776, George Washington eventually rel...
Marshall W. Waller
  12/24/25
All of these are facts anyone who has read anything about th...
Wonderful messiness
  11/30/25
oh wow you mean these aren't completely new facts that ken b...
bateful disrespectful ticket booth brethren
  11/30/25
really dumb criticism. OP is trying to create solid content,...
Curious Cruise Ship Liquid Oxygen
  12/01/25
Fact #6: the Iroquois created democracy and whitey stole it ...
offensive aquamarine multi-billionaire
  12/01/25
It’s funny, this claim has been getting traction on Tw...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
so the first few sentences of the series did not say that th...
Sooty shrine
  12/01/25
That doesn’t bear any resemblance to what you’re...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
it unambiguously says that the Iroquois had a "democrac...
Sooty shrine
  12/02/25
They did! And they formed a confederacy. You’re not ...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/03/25
it was a permanent ruling caste chosen matrilineally. if tha...
Sooty shrine
  12/03/25
born Robert Peter Cohon
Maize Site Queen Of The Night
  12/01/25
Fact #5: The colonies were by far the least profitable colon...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/01/25
Fact #7: George Washington Carver's great-grandfather was a ...
Mentally impaired histrionic native haunted graveyard
  12/02/25
Pretty sad you guys just want to do racisms and not learn ab...
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/02/25
?
Mentally impaired histrionic native haunted graveyard
  12/03/25
You forgot the super soaker
Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary
  12/03/25
...
bateful disrespectful ticket booth brethren
  12/03/25
Fact #6: I knew that rich drafted men could pay poor men to ...
Marshall W. Waller
  12/24/25
Fact #7: Washington mostly got outsmarted and outflanked for...
Marshall W. Waller
  12/25/25


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Reply Favorite

Date: November 29th, 2025 1:22 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Fact #1. Boston used to be an island. Backbay was literally a bay.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1bn2n09/boston_land_reclamation_between_1630_and_1995/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49470245)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:25 AM
Author: mildly autistic pozpig giraffe

huh. did they have a lot of little bridges back then? or how did they get around

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471669)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:18 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

There was one isthmus, so had the British come by land they could have been easily met by militia forces in a bottle neck. That’s why the British chose to come “by sea” and land their forces in Charlestown.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475259)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 11:41 PM
Author: mildly autistic pozpig giraffe



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49476232)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 25th, 2025 6:36 AM
Author: Blitzen Did Nothing Wrong (TDNW)

yeah massive infill with trash and whatever else

surprised thst flooding isn’t a bigger issue there

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49538864)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 29th, 2025 1:24 PM
Author: bateful disrespectful ticket booth brethren



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49470256)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 29th, 2025 1:36 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Fact #2: Initially, only free blacks were allowed to join the American forces. Enlisting slaves was seen as "awkward" because they kept saying the Brits were treating them like slaves. This was codified by the Massachusetts legislature.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49470300)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:20 AM
Author: contagious temple

yer an idiot if you believe that’s why they didn’t allow slaves in the forces

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471689)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:13 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

What’s the real reason? They let them in very shortly thereafter. So they passed a law and then almost immediately changed their minds.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475232)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:37 PM
Author: contagious temple

if you're a wealthy tea merchant or spice trader astroturfing insurrection against an onerous tax regime, would you have an easier time convincing the agricultural southern elite to join your cause by demanding that they donate their tractors to the fight, or by telling them that the shitlib bostonians and poor ass backwater western pennsylvanians will absorb all the shrapnel

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475332)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 11:42 PM
Author: Twinkling Motley Public Bath

Underrrated

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49476234)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 9:49 AM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Sup, Noam

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49476781)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:10 AM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Fact #3: Early in the war the Continental Congress tried to seize Canada, fully expecting that they could make it part of the new country. But the U.S. lost the Battle of Quebec City. If that hadn’t happened it’s possible all or some of Canada would be America.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471655)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:23 AM
Author: Maize Site Queen Of The Night

Wow all this shit about black people sounds really important.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471668)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:26 AM
Author: Topaz supple toaster base

If not for blacks we would have conquered Canada.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471670)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:14 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

I see what you did there. I doff my cap to you, sir.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475235)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:08 AM
Author: Excitant location hairy legs

This should not be a new learned fact. The U.S. fought the War of 1812 over the same thing—annexation of Canada—and the British sacked DC and the war ended technically in a stalemate (USA lost badly).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471687)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:20 AM
Author: Brindle domesticated stead gay wizard

XO Jackson would have words about that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471690)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 25th, 2025 6:38 AM
Author: Blitzen Did Nothing Wrong (TDNW)

Trump is gonna finish the job

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49538866)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:20 AM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Fact #4: Lord Dunmore declared that any slave owned by a rebel who fought for the British would be freed. He formed a unit of several hundred runaway slaves called “The Ethiopia Regiment”. The idea backfired by more firmly uniting the states, especially the Southern States, against the British.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471666)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:35 AM
Author: Nighttime Pisswyrm University

I thought the idea backfired when they all caught smallpox

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471699)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:16 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

All soldiers of all races suffered badly from small pox. Another fun fact is that Washington faced the difficult choice of inoculating all troops at once (and putting everyone out of commission for two weeks) or doing it piecemeal and risking outbreaks. They ended up just trying to quarantine.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475246)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 24th, 2025 6:54 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

Update: At the end of 1776, George Washington eventually relented and all new recruits had to be inoculated prior to joining the army and this was one of his most consequential decisions, as army readiness soared once this program was in place.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49536406)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:51 AM
Author: Wonderful messiness

All of these are facts anyone who has read anything about the revolutionary war already knows

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471717)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 10:12 AM
Author: bateful disrespectful ticket booth brethren

oh wow you mean these aren't completely new facts that ken burns uncovered himself?

shut the FUCK up you know-it-all dweeb. i didn't know boston was an island.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49471741)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:15 PM
Author: Curious Cruise Ship Liquid Oxygen

really dumb criticism. OP is trying to create solid content, and content is what xo desperately needs.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475242)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:19 PM
Author: offensive aquamarine multi-billionaire

Fact #6: the Iroquois created democracy and whitey stole it before they raped and killed them all.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475262)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:28 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

It’s funny, this claim has been getting traction on Twitter, but it’s actually nowhere in the series. It’s a total made up straw man used by conservatives to attack Ken Burns, but he does not make this claim. He talks about Native American governance, but it’s actually very relevant and interesting as the Natives were a big wildcard throughout the war. The Cherokee kind of screwed themselves by briefly siding with the British.

The knock that’s valid is that he constantly returns to “what were the slaves getting up to”, but given how much research has been done on this period that’s the one area that is actually somewhat under explored and is new to me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475296)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:45 PM
Author: Sooty shrine

so the first few sentences of the series did not say that the Iroquois had a "democracy," is that what you're saying? listen and see what you think.

https://x.com/adamkjohnston/status/1990986003293536716

funny irony: the Jewish narrator of the series adopted the name "Peter Coyote" after an entirely euro-American "plastic shaman," phony Native American led Peter to a faux spiritual path based upon a trip on hallucinatory drugs. then the "Coyote" went Zen and has never circled back to Native American culture.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475358)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:09 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

That doesn’t bear any resemblance to what you’re claiming. It’s a total canard.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475427)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 11:00 AM
Author: Sooty shrine

it unambiguously says that the Iroquois had a "democracy," which is plainly bullshit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49477027)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 7:15 AM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

They did! And they formed a confederacy. You’re not even understanding the claims. The claim that has people upset is that the U.S. confederacy and early democracy was modeled on the Iroquois. This is not the case and it’s not a claim Ken Burns actually makes. But it is true that Iroquois and other tribes used forms of democracy and representative government.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49479288)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 8:18 AM
Author: Sooty shrine

it was a permanent ruling caste chosen matrilineally. if that counts as a "democracy" then everything does.



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49479345)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:11 PM
Author: Maize Site Queen Of The Night

born Robert Peter Cohon

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475435)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:30 PM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Fact #5: The colonies were by far the least profitable colonies in the British empire. Britain was much more worried about losing the Caribbean colonies at the outset and so British public sentiment turned more quickly against the war than it would have had it really threatened the Caribbean profits.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49475304)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 12:08 AM
Author: Mentally impaired histrionic native haunted graveyard

Fact #7: George Washington Carver's great-grandfather was a freed slave who invented the musket, cannon, lantern, candle, and gunpowder.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49476260)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 9:48 AM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

Pretty sad you guys just want to do racisms and not learn about America

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49476778)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 1:35 AM
Author: Mentally impaired histrionic native haunted graveyard

?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49479158)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 10:43 AM
Author: Grizzly Jet-lagged Sanctuary

You forgot the super soaker

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49479641)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 8:25 AM
Author: bateful disrespectful ticket booth brethren



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49479354)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 24th, 2025 6:52 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

Fact #6: I knew that rich drafted men could pay poor men to take their place, but sometimes entire towns would pay other towns to send men in their place, which sounds like something Shelbyville would do to Springfield.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49536403)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 25th, 2025 6:21 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

Fact #7: Washington mostly got outsmarted and outflanked for the first two years. He was kind of learning on the job and he basically just loses city after city with a few victories where he catches the Brits by surprise. He actually loses more battles than he wins but his real legacy was the overall organization of the military and its overall strategy. He wasn’t like Napoleon, who was also a tactical genius.

Terrible reconnaissance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brandywine

Overly complicated attack strategy ruined by fog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Germantown

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2Ã#49538856)