Part 1: Highlights from Ken Burns' The American Revolution documentary, followed by a discussion and craft project.

The celebration for America 250 has begun! We will be showing extended highlights from the just released PBS Film by Ken Burns, "The American Revolution." We will have a discussion following the clips.  Stay to the end if you like and make a revolutionary era tin lantern.  Part 2 of the documentary, focusing on military action, will be shown next week.  

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.

An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Viewers will experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: the rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen (some of them teenagers), Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies, and various civilians living in North America, Loyalist as well as Patriot, including many made refugees by the war.

“The American Revolution has always been surrounded by myth that keeps us from seeing the real picture,” said Ken Burns. “The story of the birth of this country is at once devastating and inspiring. It was a bloody civil war that divided families and communities, displaced native nations, both challenged and protected the institution of slavery, while also proclaiming the noblest aspirations of humankind.”

“The Revolution was eight years of uncertainty, hope, and terror, a brutal war that engaged millions of people in North America and beyond and left tremendous loss in its wake,” said David Schmidt (BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE VIETNAM WAR). “At the same time, the Revolution also changed how Americans thought about themselves, their government, and what they were capable of achieving. The United States that emerged from the war was a nation few could have imagined before the shooting began in April 1775.”

Stay until the end for an optional tin lantern craft.