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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...
Sticky office
  11/29/25
huh. did they have a lot of little bridges back then? or ho...
comical deep business firm brethren
  11/30/25
There was one isthmus, so had the British come by land they ...
Sticky office
  12/01/25
...
comical deep business firm brethren
  12/01/25
...
swashbuckling mother
  11/29/25
Fact #2: Initially, only free blacks were allowed to join th...
Sticky office
  11/29/25
yer an idiot if you believe that’s why they didn&rsquo...
Beta lodge
  11/30/25
What’s the real reason? They let them in very shortly...
Sticky office
  12/01/25
if you're a wealthy tea merchant or spice trader astroturfin...
Beta lodge
  12/01/25
Underrrated
haunting hell
  12/01/25
Sup, Noam
Marshall W. Waller
  12/02/25
Fact #3: Early in the war the Continental Congress tried to ...
Sticky office
  11/30/25
Wow all this shit about black people sounds really important...
topaz wonderful national
  11/30/25
If not for blacks we would have conquered Canada.
Nubile property
  11/30/25
I see what you did there. I doff my cap to you, sir.
Sticky office
  12/01/25
This should not be a new learned fact. The U.S. fought the W...
High-end sexy stage blood rage
  11/30/25
XO Jackson would have words about that.
silver round eye
  11/30/25
Fact #4: Lord Dunmore declared that any slave owned by a reb...
Sticky office
  11/30/25
I thought the idea backfired when they all caught smallpox
Marvelous rusted double fault
  11/30/25
All soldiers of all races suffered badly from small pox. An...
Sticky office
  12/01/25
All of these are facts anyone who has read anything about th...
insanely creepy drunken garrison
  11/30/25
oh wow you mean these aren't completely new facts that ken b...
swashbuckling mother
  11/30/25
really dumb criticism. OP is trying to create solid content,...
Dark Theater
  12/01/25
Fact #6: the Iroquois created democracy and whitey stole it ...
fluffy apoplectic prole spot
  12/01/25
It’s funny, this claim has been getting traction on Tw...
Sticky office
  12/01/25
so the first few sentences of the series did not say that th...
red piazza
  12/01/25
That doesn’t bear any resemblance to what you’re...
Sticky office
  12/01/25
it unambiguously says that the Iroquois had a "democrac...
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
  12/02/25
They did! And they formed a confederacy. You’re not ...
Marshall W. Waller
  12/03/25
it was a permanent ruling caste chosen matrilineally. if tha...
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
  12/03/25
born Robert Peter Cohon
topaz wonderful national
  12/01/25
Fact #5: The colonies were by far the least profitable colon...
Sticky office
  12/01/25
Fact #7: George Washington Carver's great-grandfather was a ...
Laughsome brunch
  12/02/25
Pretty sad you guys just want to do racisms and not learn ab...
Marshall W. Waller
  12/02/25
?
...,.,,.....,,.,...,......,...,....,..
  12/03/25
You forgot the super soaker
Marshall W. Waller
  12/03/25
...
ever-growing, towering monument of mental illness
  12/03/25


Poast new message in this thread



Reply Favorite

Date: November 29th, 2025 1:22 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49470245)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:25 AM
Author: comical deep business firm brethren

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=2id.#49471669)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:18 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49475259)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 11:41 PM
Author: comical deep business firm brethren



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



Reply Favorite

Date: November 29th, 2025 1:24 PM
Author: swashbuckling mother



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



Reply Favorite

Date: November 29th, 2025 1:36 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49470300)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:20 AM
Author: Beta lodge

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=2id.#49471689)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:13 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49475232)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:37 PM
Author: Beta lodge

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=2id.#49475332)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 11:42 PM
Author: haunting hell

Underrrated

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 9:49 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

Sup, Noam

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



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:10 AM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49471655)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:23 AM
Author: topaz wonderful national

Wow all this shit about black people sounds really important.

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



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:26 AM
Author: Nubile property

If not for blacks we would have conquered Canada.

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:14 PM
Author: Sticky office

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

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



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:08 AM
Author: High-end sexy stage blood rage

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=2id.#49471687)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:20 AM
Author: silver round eye

XO Jackson would have words about that.

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



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 8:20 AM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49471666)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:35 AM
Author: Marvelous rusted double fault

I thought the idea backfired when they all caught smallpox

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:16 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49475246)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 9:51 AM
Author: insanely creepy drunken garrison

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=2id.#49471717)



Reply Favorite

Date: November 30th, 2025 10:12 AM
Author: swashbuckling mother

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=2id.#49471741)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:15 PM
Author: Dark Theater

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=2id.#49475242)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:19 PM
Author: fluffy apoplectic prole spot

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=2id.#49475262)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:28 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49475296)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:45 PM
Author: red piazza

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=2id.#49475358)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:09 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49475427)



Reply Favorite

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


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

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 7:15 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

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=2id.#49479288)



Reply Favorite

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


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=2id.#49479345)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 6:11 PM
Author: topaz wonderful national

born Robert Peter Cohon

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 1st, 2025 5:30 PM
Author: Sticky office

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=2id.#49475304)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 12:08 AM
Author: Laughsome brunch

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=2id.#49476260)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 2nd, 2025 9:48 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

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=2id.#49476778)



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 1:35 AM
Author: ...,.,,.....,,.,...,......,...,....,..


?

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 10:43 AM
Author: Marshall W. Waller

You forgot the super soaker

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



Reply Favorite

Date: December 3rd, 2025 8:25 AM
Author: ever-growing, towering monument of mental illness (gunneratttt)



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