Saturday, February 16, 2013

Story of America: Rebels

Today, I saw the first episode of the famous documentary America:The Story of US. It is a 12 part documentary showing how America became the most powerful nation from one of the most remote places in world. The first episode titled rebels tells how America was first settled by open and courageous people from Europe who came there to start a new life. The success of these people motivated others of their kind to come and join.

The documentary shows how Tobacco crops made the migrated people rich and made America the land of opportunity for the people who had dreams and the courage to follow them. But the increasing wealth of America also attracted Britain who quickly created 13 colonies there and imposed taxes.A third of all British shipping is made in America. But the natives were not happy with this new and biased law and governance of Britain and decided to revolt. In Philadelphia  First Continental Congress met on September 5, 1774 which included 56 delegates from 12 colonies. The delegates included John Adams, George Washington, Patrick Henry and many more.

The revolt started in Boston after a small fight between the guards and mob, but the news spreads quickly due to the revolution in postal delivery system by postmaster Benjamin Franklin. The newspapers spread the news of revolt quickly around the 3 colonies.After the tea taxes by British, people threw the tonnes of cargo in sea. British respond by closing down the Boston harbor; hundreds lost their jobs. The American rebels started forming the local militia by training them and then attacked the British army which came on the news of rebellion to suppress it and to take the arms and ammunition of rebels. When the smoke cleared, a third of the army was down or wounded.

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