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The American Revolution Explained in 23 Minutes — Transcript

by Agent Flappy · 3,498 words · 578 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00From barefoot farmers taking on the most
0:02powerful army on Earth to a midnight
0:05crossing of the Delaware River that
0:07changed the course of history. This is
0:09the American Revolution explained. A war
0:12so improbable the people who fought it
0:15basically had no training, no money, and
0:18no chance of winning. If it wasn't for
0:20one man's unbreakable will to keep
0:23going, the United States of America
0:25would have never existed.
0:27But let's rewind cuz revolutions don't
0:30just pop out of nowhere. They simmer.
0:32They stew. And by the time 1775 rolled
0:36around, exploded. Cuz here's the thing
0:39most people don't realize. The American
0:41colonists didn't start wanting
0:44independence. For over a century, they
0:46were proud British subjects. They flew
0:49the Union Jack, toasted the king, and
0:52considered themselves Englishmen. So,
0:54what went wrong? Money and a whole lot
0:58of disrespect. Cuz in 1763, Britain had
1:01just won the French and Indian War. A
1:04brutal 7-year [music] conflict fought
1:06largely on American soil. Britain gained
1:09massive territory but also massive debt.
1:13And guess who Parliament decided should
1:15pay for it? Yep, the colonists. The very
1:19people who helped fight the war in the
1:21first place. Hey, that doesn't seem very
1:23fair.
1:24So, Britain started slapping taxes on
1:27everything. The Stamp Act taxed
1:29newspapers, legal documents, and playing
1:32cards. And the Townshend Acts taxed
1:34glass, paint, paper, and tea. But the
1:38real kicker was that the colonists had
1:40zero representation in Parliament. No
1:43vote, no voice, no seat at the table.
1:46And that gave rise to one of the most
1:48powerful rallying cries in history. No
1:51taxation without representation. Which
1:54was basically the colonists' way of
1:56saying, "You can't take our money if we
1:58don't get a say in how it's spent." And
2:01honestly, pretty solid argument. But,
2:04King George III and Parliaments weren't
2:06interested in listening. In fact, they
2:08doubled down. Cuz to enforce these
2:11taxes, Britain sent 4,000 soldiers to
2:14occupy Boston, a city of only 16,000
2:17people. Imagine soldiers on every
2:20corner, armed to the teeth, patrolling
2:22your neighborhood every day. It felt
2:25like [music] a powder keg. And on the
2:27night of March 5th, 1770, it finally
2:30blew. Cuz a crowd of colonists
2:32surrounded a group of British soldiers
2:34outside the Boston Custom House.
2:36Snowballs flew. Insults flew harder.
2:40Someone even swung a club. Until
2:43British soldiers fired into the crowd,
2:46killing five civilians, including
2:48Crispus Attucks, a black and Native
2:50American sailor who became the first
2:53person to die in the American
2:54Revolution. They called it the Boston
2:56[music]
2:57Massacre. Now, was it actually a
3:00massacre?
3:02Five people isn't exactly a massacre by
3:04the usual definition. But, the name
3:06stuck, and that was the point. Cuz
3:09colonial leaders like Samuel Adams and
3:12Paul Revere made sure everyone heard
3:14about it. Revere even made an engraving
3:17that showed the soldiers gleefully
3:19firing into a helpless crowd. Was it
3:22anti-British propaganda? Absolutely.
3:26Did it work? 100%.
3:29But, the real fireworks came 3 years
3:31later. Cuz in 1773, Parliament [music]
3:35passed the Tea Act, which gave the
3:37British East India Company a monopoly on
3:39tea sales in the colonies. And the
3:41colonists had finally had enough. So, on
3:45the night of December 16th, a group of
3:47colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians
3:50snuck aboard three British ships in
3:52Boston Harbor and dumped 342
3:55chests of tea into the water. Hey boys,
3:58mind if I join the party?
4:01Ha!
4:02They called it the Boston Tea Party and
4:05it was basically the colonies flipping
4:07the table and saying, "We're done
4:09talking."
4:10That's the spirit, fellas.
4:12But King George the III, he was furious.
4:15So, Parliament responded with the
4:17Intolerable Acts, shutting down Boston
4:20Harbor, dissolving local government, and
4:22quartering British soldiers in
4:24colonists' homes.
4:26The message was clear, fall in line or
4:29else.
4:30But instead of scaring the colonists
4:32into submission, it united them cuz all
4:3513 colonies came together for the First
4:38Continental Congress and for the first
4:40time, Americans spoke with [music] one
4:42voice. But this whole revolution thing
4:45makes a lot more sense when you look at
4:47who was involved. Cuz on the British
4:50side sat King George the III, ruler of
4:52the most powerful empire on the planet.
4:55He commanded the world's strongest navy,
4:57a professional army of seasoned
4:59soldiers, and enough money to fund a war
5:01across an entire ocean. And George
5:04wasn't about to let a bunch of colonial
5:06farmers embarrass him. He saw the
5:08rebellion as treason, pure and simple.
5:11And traitors get hanged.
5:14Yeah, this guy means business. But on
5:16the American side was a man who would
5:18become the backbone of the entire
5:20revolution, George Washington. Now,
5:24unlike most military commanders,
5:26Washington wasn't some war-hardened
5:28genius. He was a Virginia planter and
5:31politician who had served in the French
5:33and Indian War with mixed results if
5:35we're being honest. Cuz he lost more
5:38battles than he won and his early career
5:40was, shall we say, a learning
5:42experience. He had no formal military
5:45training from any European academy. He
5:48never commanded an army larger than a
5:50regiment. And he was about to go up
5:53against the most professional fighting
5:55force on earth. Sir, are you sure about
5:57this? But Washington had something you
6:00just can't teach, resilience. Cuz this
6:03man could lose a battle, lose half his
6:05army, lose his shoes in a snowstorm, and
6:08still show up the next morning ready to
6:10fight. That's the kind of guy he was.
6:13The man simply would not quit. And that
6:16single trait, more than any battlefield
6:18[music] victory, is what saved the
6:20revolution. Cuz in April of 1775,
6:24the British made their move. General
6:27Thomas Gage, the British military
6:29governor of Massachusetts, sent 700
6:31soldiers on a secret night time march to
6:34seize colonial weapons stored in
6:35Concord. But the colonists had spies
6:38everywhere. So Paul Revere and William
6:41Dawes mounted their horses and rode
6:43through the night, warning every town
6:45along the way, "The regulars are coming.
6:48The regulars are coming."
6:50And by the time the British reached
6:52Lexington at dawn, a line of about 70
6:54colonial minutemen stood waiting on the
6:57village green. 70 farmers and
6:59shopkeepers against 700 professional
7:02soldiers. The British commander ordered
7:05the colonists to disperse. But then, a
7:08single shot rang out.
7:11And then everything erupted into chaos.
7:13When the smoke cleared, eight Americans
7:16lay dead, and the British marched on
7:18toward Concord. But word had spread like
7:21wildfire. And by the time the redcoats
7:23turned [music] around to head home,
7:25thousands of colonial militia lined the
7:28road. They hid behind stone walls,
7:30trees, and barns, and picked off British
7:33soldiers the entire 15-mi march back to
7:36Boston. By the end of the day, the
7:38British suffered 273 casualties, and the
7:42colonists around 90. The American
7:45Revolution had begun, and the colonists
7:48had just shown the world's greatest
7:49military [music] that they weren't going
7:51down without a fight.
7:53Woo!
7:54Let's go, boys.
7:56But, 2 months later came the battle that
7:58proved this wasn't a fluke. Cuz when
8:00colonial forces fortified Breed's Hill
8:03overlooking Boston Harbor, the British
8:05decided to take it by force. And their
8:08strategy was bold. They marched uphill
8:11in formation straight into colonial
8:14musket fire. The American commander
8:16reportedly gave the famous order, "Don't
8:19fire until you see the whites of their
8:21eyes." And when the colonists finally
8:23opened up, the front lines of redcoats
8:25dropped like dominoes. The British
8:27retreated, regrouped, [music] and
8:30charged again. And, yep, same result.
8:34Bodies everywhere.
8:36On the third charge, the colonists
8:38finally ran out of ammunition and
8:40retreated. So, technically, the British
8:42won, but they lost over a thousand men
8:45to take a single hill. Nearly half the
8:48soldiers who charged were killed or
8:50wounded. And a British general later
8:53wrote, "A few more such victories
8:55[music] would have shortly put an end to
8:57British dominion in America."
8:59Translation, if winning looks like this,
9:02we're in serious trouble.
9:04But, here's the ugly truth. After those
9:07early sparks, the revolution nearly
9:09collapsed. Cuz Washington took command
9:12of the Continental Army in the summer of
9:141775 and quickly discovered what he was
9:17working with. An underfunded,
9:19undisciplined, barely organized
9:21collection of farmers and tradesmen who
9:24thought of themselves as state militias,
9:26not a national army. They didn't have
9:29enough muskets or uniforms, and half of
9:31them planned on going home when their
9:33enlistments ran out in December.
9:36Uh, "Sir, we got our work cut out for us
9:38here.
9:39But, before the fighting could escalate,
9:41the colonies made a decision that
9:43changed everything. Cuz, on July 4th,
9:461776, the Second Continental Congress
9:49adopted the Declaration of Independence,
9:52written largely by a 33-year-old
9:54Virginian named Thomas Jefferson. And
9:57the opening lines hit like a cannon
9:59shot. We hold these truths to be
10:01self-evident, that all men are created
10:04equal, that they are endowed by their
10:06creator with certain unalienable rights,
10:08that among these are life, liberty, and
10:11the pursuit of happiness. It wasn't just
10:13a breakup letter to King George. It was
10:16a philosophy, a declaration to the
10:19entire world that governments exist to
10:21serve the people. And when they don't,
10:24the people have the right to tear them
10:25down and start over. It was bold,
10:29radical, and now there was no going
10:32back. Cuz, by signing that document,
10:35every man in that room was committing
10:37treason. If they lost this war, they
10:40wouldn't just lose their property.
10:42They'd lose their necks.
10:44As Benjamin Franklin famously said, "We
10:46must, indeed, all hang together, or most
10:49assuredly, we shall all hang
10:51separately."
10:52So, yeah, it was do or die for the
10:55founders. But, things only got worse on
10:58the battlefield in 1776.
11:00After the British evacuated Boston,
11:03Washington moved his army to defend New
11:05York City. But, the British arrived with
11:07an armada, over 400 ships and 32,000
11:11soldiers, the largest expeditionary
11:14force Britain had ever assembled. And
11:16Washington had roughly 19,000 men. Many
11:20of them had never seen combat. And what
11:23followed was a disaster. At the Battle
11:26of Long Island, the British flanked
11:28Washington's army so badly that nearly a
11:31thousand Americans were captured in a
11:33single day.
11:34>> [music]
11:34>> The Continental Army was pushed off Long
11:36Island, then out of Manhattan, then
11:39across New Jersey. By December,
11:41Washington's army had shrunk to fewer
11:43than 3,000 men. Morale was in the
11:47gutter. Enlistments were expiring. And
11:50the British were so confident [music]
11:51the war was over, they settled into
11:53winter quarters. The revolution was
11:56dying.
11:57And Thomas Paine, the revolutionary
11:59writer, captured the mood perfectly.
12:02These are the times that try men's
12:04souls. The summer soldier and the
12:06sunshine [music] patriot will, in the
12:08crisis, shrink from the service of their
12:10country.
12:11But Washington wasn't a sunshine
12:13patriot, and he was about to prove it.
12:16Cuz on the night of December 25th, 1776,
12:20Christmas night, in the middle of a
12:21freezing nor'easter, Washington loaded
12:242,400 soldiers into boats and crossed
12:26the icy Delaware River. The conditions
12:30were absolutely brutal. Temperatures
12:32hovered near zero. Sleet and snow
12:35blasted the men sideways, and some
12:37soldiers didn't even have shoes. They
12:40marched barefoot through the snow,
12:42leaving bloody footprints [music] on the
12:44road. And when they reached Trenton at
12:46dawn, they caught the Hessian garrison
12:48completely off guard. The battle lasted
12:51less than 90 minutes. Washington's men
12:54captured nearly a thousand Hessian
12:56soldiers, and didn't lose a single man
12:58in combat. It was a small victory in
13:01military terms, but psychologically, it
13:03was everything. Cuz it proved the
13:06revolution wasn't dead, that this ragged
13:09army could still fight, and that
13:11Washington, bloodied, beaten, and
13:13running out of time, refused to give up.
13:16That's my guy right there. That's the
13:18man. But one crazy raid wasn't going to
13:21win a war. For that, Washington needed
13:24something bigger. He needed help. And it
13:27came from an unlikely source, France.
13:30Now, France didn't join the war because
13:32they loved democracy. Let's be real,
13:35they were a monarchy. They joined
13:37because they hated Britain. The French
13:39and Indian War had humiliated them, and
13:42here was a golden opportunity for
13:44revenge. But, France needed proof that
13:47the Americans could actually win before
13:49committing troops and money. They
13:51weren't about to bet on a losing horse,
13:53and that proof came at Saratoga. Cuz in
13:57the fall of 1777,
13:59British General John Burgoyne was
14:01leading an army of 7,000 men south from
14:03Canada. The plan was brilliant on paper.
14:06Cut off New England from the rest of the
14:08colonies by controlling the Hudson River
14:10Valley, and the rebellion would crumble.
14:13But, Burgoyne's march turned into a
14:15nightmare. His supply line stretched
14:17thinner with every mile. The dense
14:20forest slowed his heavy artillery to a
14:22crawl, and American militia swarmed his
14:24flanks like hornets. And then came
14:27Benedict Arnold. Yeah, that Benedict
14:30Arnold. Before he became America's most
14:32famous [music] traitor, he was one of
14:34its most ferocious battlefield
14:36commanders. At the Battle of Freeman's
14:38Farm, Arnold charged headfirst into
14:40British lines, rallying American troops
14:43and nearly breaking through. His
14:45commanding officer, General Horatio
14:47Gates, actually relieved him [music] of
14:49command after the battle for being too
14:51aggressive. But, when the second battle
14:53erupted weeks later, Arnold couldn't
14:55stay away. He disobeyed orders, jumped
14:58on his horse, and rode straight back
15:00into the fight without permission from
15:02anyone.
15:03The scene was pure chaos. Musket smoke
15:07blanketing the [music] fields, cannons
15:09ripping through tree lines, and men
15:11screaming and falling on every side. And
15:14in the middle of it all was Arnold. He
15:16smashed through one British defensive
15:18position, then another. He was
15:21everywhere, screaming, charging, leading
15:24men into the teeth of enemy fire like a
15:26man who decided that if he was going to
15:28die, he's taking the entire British army
15:30with him. Until a musket ball shattered
15:33his leg. His horse collapsed. Arnold
15:36went down in a heap, but the British
15:38line went down with him. What a legend.
15:42Well, for now. We'll talk about the
15:44whole treason thing later. Cos
15:46Burgoyne's army was surrounded,
15:49outnumbered, and on October 17th,
15:51[music]
15:511777,
15:53he surrendered his entire force, nearly
15:556,000 men. It was the turning point of
15:58the American Revolution. And when news
16:01of Saratoga reached Paris, King Louis
16:03the 16th made it official. France would
16:06enter the war as America's ally. Woohoo!
16:10That meant money, troops, and a navy
16:12were heading Washington's way. The game
16:15had changed, and the British knew it.
16:18But even with French support on the way,
16:20the Continental Army still had to
16:22survive one more insane test. Cos the
16:25winter of 1777 into '78 at Valley Forge
16:29was hell on Earth. Over 12,000 soldiers
16:33huddled in log huts in the Pennsylvania
16:35countryside, where food was so scarce
16:38and men went days eating nothing but
16:40firecakes, which was flour mixed with
16:43water and cooked on hot stones. Yuck!
16:46This is gross.
16:48Disease ravaged the camp, and roughly
16:512,000 soldiers died. Not from battle,
16:54but from cold, hunger, and sickness.
16:57Sir, I don't feel so good.
17:01But Washington refused to leave his men.
17:04He walked through the camp, lifted their
17:06spirits, and held the army together
17:08through sheer force of will.
17:11And then, something remarkable happened.
17:13A Prussian military officer named Baron
17:16von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge and
17:18transformed [music]
17:19the Continental Army from a disorganized
17:21militia into a disciplined fighting
17:24force.
17:25Left, left, left, right, left. And when
17:29spring [music] arrived, the army that
17:31marched out of Valley Forge was a
17:33completely different beast from the one
17:35that had stumbled in. They were ready
17:37for a real fight. And that fight came in
17:401781.
17:42Cuz by this point, the war had dragged
17:44on for six exhausting years. The British
17:47had shifted their strategy south,
17:49capturing Charleston and Savannah. The
17:51Continental Congress was nearly [music]
17:53bankrupt, and even Washington was
17:55privately writing letters expressing
17:57doubt about whether they could hold on
17:59much longer. But then, the stars finally
18:02aligned. Cuz British General Lord
18:05Cornwallis, after chasing American
18:07forces through the Carolinas, made a
18:09fateful decision. He marched his army of
18:129,000 men to a small tobacco port on the
18:15Virginia coast called Yorktown. He
18:17positioned his forces along the York
18:19River, expecting the Royal Navy to
18:22resupply or evacuate him by sea. But
18:24Washington saw the trap before
18:26Cornwallis [music] did. In one of the
18:28most brilliant moves of the entire war,
18:31Washington secretly marched his army 400
18:34miles south from New York, along with
18:36General Rochambeau's French [music]
18:38forces, straight toward Yorktown. And at
18:40the same time, a French fleet under
18:43Admiral de Grasse sailed into the
18:44Chesapeake Bay and defeated the British
18:46Navy at the Battle of the Capes.
18:49Cornwallis looked to the sea for rescue.
18:51There was nothing but French warships
18:53staring back at him. He looked behind
18:56him, and 17,000 American and French
18:59soldiers were closing in. He was
19:01completely and utterly surrounded.
19:04So for 3 weeks, American and French
19:07artillery pounded the British positions
19:09without mercy. Shells rained down day
19:12and night as the earth shook. And inside
19:15Yorktown, buildings crumbled, food ran
19:17out, and soldiers huddled in the rubble
19:20wondering if the next shell had their
19:22name on it. Then came the night
19:24assaults. On October 14th, two key
19:27British redoubts needed to fall. These
19:30were like mini forts. One was assigned
19:32to the French, the other to the
19:34Americans led by a young colonel [music]
19:36named Alexander Hamilton, who'd been
19:38begging Washington for combat command.
19:41Hamilton didn't wait for the artillery
19:43to soften the position. He ordered his
19:45men [music] to attack with unloaded
19:47muskets and fixed bayonets. No shooting,
19:50just cold steel in the dark. They leapt
19:53over the walls, overwhelmed the
19:55defenders, and captured the redoubt in
19:57under 10 minutes. Holy smokes. Nice
20:00work, Hamilton.
20:02And when Cornwallis attempted one final
20:04desperate nighttime escape by loading
20:06soldiers onto boats, a sudden violent
20:09storm threw his boats back to shore.
20:12Nature itself said, "Nope. It's over for
20:15you, buddy." On October 19th, 1781,
20:18Cornwallis surrendered his entire army.
20:21He was so humiliated that he didn't even
20:23show up to the ceremony. He sent a
20:25subordinate instead. As the British
20:28soldiers marched out to lay down their
20:29weapons between two long rows of
20:31American and French troops, their band
20:34reportedly played a tune called The
20:36World Turned Upside Down. And honestly,
20:39perfect song choice. Cuz a ragtag army
20:42of colonial farmers, barefoot, broke,
20:45and beaten down for six long years had
20:48just defeated the greatest military
20:50power on the planet. I can't even
20:52believe it. We did it!
20:55But the war wasn't officially over yet.
20:58Cuz it took nearly two more years of
21:00negotiations before Britain and America
21:03signed the Treaty of Paris on September
21:053rd, 1783.
21:07Britain recognized American
21:09independence. The new nation's border
21:11stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the
21:13Mississippi River. And just like that,
21:15the 13 colonies were no longer colonies
21:18at all. They were the United States of
21:20America. But there was one final moment
21:23that proved what kind of man George
21:25Washington truly was. Cuz after the war,
21:28Washington was the most powerful and
21:30beloved man in America. Some people even
21:33wanted to make him king. He had the
21:35army's loyalty, the people's love, and
21:38he could have seized power, and nobody
21:40would have stopped him. But Washington
21:42did something that stunned the entire
21:44world. [music]
21:45He resigned. He walked into the
21:48Continental Congress, handed back his
21:50commission, and went home to his farm at
21:52Mount Vernon. When King George III heard
21:55that Washington had voluntarily given up
21:57power, he said, "If he does that, he'll
22:00be the greatest man in the world." And
22:03you know what? He was right. That's just
22:05the kind of guy he was, a man of
22:08character.
22:11We love you, sir.
22:13But in the end, the American Revolution
22:15didn't just create a country, it created
22:18an idea. Cuz roughly 25,000 Americans
22:21died in the fight for independence, from
22:24battlefields to prison ships to frozen
22:26encampments where men died with no shoes
22:29on their feet, which is just insane to
22:31think about. But from those sacrifices,
22:34something new was born. The radical
22:37belief that ordinary [music] people
22:38could govern themselves, that power
22:41didn't flow down from kings, but up from
22:43the people. And that idea didn't just
22:46stay in America, it rippled across the
22:48globe. The American Revolution proved
22:51that a small group of determined people
22:53fighting for something they believed in
22:55could change the world. God bless
22:58America, man. I freaking love this
23:00country. But despite all that hard work,
23:0380 years later, the nation almost tore
23:05itself apart. And it would take another
23:08American legend to save it. Cuz this is
23:11the American Civil War explained. From
23:14the bloodiest day in American history to
23:16the emotional surrender of a Confederate
23:18general to the president saving America
23:21from the brink of collapse and then
23:23getting assassinated 5 days later. If
23:26you thought the American Revolution was
23:28crazy, click this video right here. Cuz
23:30it gets even crazier.

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