In which John Green teaches you about the American Revolution. And the Revolutionary War. I know we've labored the point here, but they weren't the same thing. In any case, John will teach you about the major battles of the war, and discuss the strategies on both sides. Everyone is familiar with how this war played out for the Founding Fathers; they got to become the Founding Fathers. But what did the revolution mean to the common people in the United States? For white, property-owning males, it was pretty sweet. They gained rights that were a definite step up from being British Colonial citizens. For everyone else, the short-term gains were not clear. Women's rights were unaffected, and slaves remained in slavery. As for poor white folks, they remained poor and disenfranchised. The reality is it took a long time for this whole democracy thing to get underway, and the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness weren't immediately available to all these newly minted Americans.

Hey teachers and students - Check out CommonLit's free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. The Declaration of Independence not only initiated America's Revolutionary War but also laid the groundwork for some core principles of the new country: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/the-d...
Many of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence came from political theorist John Locke's Political Society: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/polit...

Learn more about the American Revolution in these other Crash Course videos:
Tea, Taxes, and The American Revolution: Crash Course World History #28:    • Tea, Taxes, and The American Revoluti...  
The American Revolution: Crash Course Black American History #8:    • The American Revolution: Crash Course...  

Chapters:
Introduction: The American Revolution 00:00
The Battles of the American War for Independence 1:15
Colonists and the American Revolutionary War 2:50
Slaves and the American Revolutionary War 3:41
Native Americans and the American Revolutionary War 4:32
Women and the American Revolutionary War 5:36
'Revolutionary' Ideas: Voting Rights 6:17
'Revolutionary' Ideas: Religious Freedom 6:47
How the American Revolution Affected the Economy 7:16
Mystery Document 7:44
Slavery and Hypocrisy in the American Colonies 8:54
American Ideals of Equality 11:13
Credits 12:12

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