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Interesting Facts I learned watching Ken Burn's Revolutionary War
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Date: November 29th, 2025 1:22 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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/ |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 8:25 AM Author: Lascivious Gaming Laptop Station 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=2#49471669) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:18 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49475259) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 11:41 PM Author: Lascivious Gaming Laptop Station (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49476232) |
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Date: December 25th, 2025 6:36 AM Author: Soul-stirring stag film yeah massive infill with trash and whatever else
surprised thst flooding isn’t a bigger issue there |
Date: November 29th, 2025 1:24 PM Author: cordovan laughsome sanctuary (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49470256) |
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Date: November 29th, 2025 1:36 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49470300) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 9:20 AM Author: Ruby Haunting Resort 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=2#49471689) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:13 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49475232) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:37 PM Author: Ruby Haunting Resort 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=2#49475332) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 11:42 PM Author: razzle-dazzle blue rigor site Underrrated (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49476234) |
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Date: December 2nd, 2025 9:49 AM Author: Ultramarine base Sup, Noam (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49476781) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 8:10 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49471655) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 8:23 AM Author: Azure rigpig bawdyhouse Wow all this shit about black people sounds really important. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49471668) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 8:26 AM Author: Odious Parlor Mother If not for blacks we would have conquered Canada. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49471670) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:14 PM Author: Ultramarine base I see what you did there. I doff my cap to you, sir. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49475235) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 9:08 AM Author: sienna business firm 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=2#49471687) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 9:20 AM Author: Harsh Heady Legend Stock Car XO Jackson would have words about that. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49471690) |
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Date: December 25th, 2025 6:38 AM Author: Soul-stirring stag film Trump is gonna finish the job (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49538866) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 8:20 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49471666) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 9:35 AM Author: narrow-minded hall giraffe I thought the idea backfired when they all caught smallpox (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49471699) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:16 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49475246) |
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Date: December 24th, 2025 6:54 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49536406) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 9:51 AM Author: stirring forum becky 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=2#49471717) |
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Date: November 30th, 2025 10:12 AM Author: cordovan laughsome sanctuary 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. |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:15 PM Author: know-it-all crystalline trailer park 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=2#49475242) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:19 PM Author: Anal legal warrant pisswyrm 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=2#49475262) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:28 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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. |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:45 PM Author: electric menage 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. |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 6:09 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49475427) |
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Date: December 2nd, 2025 11:00 AM Author: electric menage it unambiguously says that the Iroquois had a "democracy," which is plainly bullshit. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49477027) |
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Date: December 3rd, 2025 7:15 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49479288) |
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Date: December 3rd, 2025 8:18 AM Author: electric menage it was a permanent ruling caste chosen matrilineally. if that counts as a "democracy" then everything does.
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Date: December 1st, 2025 6:11 PM Author: Azure rigpig bawdyhouse born Robert Peter Cohon (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49475435) |
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Date: December 1st, 2025 5:30 PM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49475304) |
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Date: December 2nd, 2025 12:08 AM Author: Lemon Stage 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=2#49476260) |
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Date: December 2nd, 2025 9:48 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49476778) |
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Date: December 3rd, 2025 1:35 AM Author: Lemon Stage ? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49479158) |
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Date: December 3rd, 2025 10:43 AM Author: Ultramarine base You forgot the super soaker (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49479641) |
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Date: December 3rd, 2025 8:25 AM Author: cordovan laughsome sanctuary (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49479354) |
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Date: December 24th, 2025 6:52 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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=2#49536403) |
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Date: December 25th, 2025 6:21 AM Author: Ultramarine base 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 |
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Date: December 31st, 2025 4:03 PM Author: Ultramarine base Fact #8: George Washington really did want to exterminate the Indians, hated them, and explicitly used the war to drive Indians off their lands. Indians also knew and understood that this was what was happening, which is why most sided with the British. But that ended up ruining all of their legal and moral arguments against expansion. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5804097&forum_id=2#49552852) |