The History of the Americans

The History of the Americans


Sidebar: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere 1: The Prelude

April 14, 2025


April 18, 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s “Midnight Ride” to alarm the towns around Boston that the “Regulars” were marching out to capture artillery and ammunition at Concord, or perhaps to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. This was but the last of a series of crises that rocked New England in the months before the midnight ride and the battles of Lexington and Concord the next day. This episode explores those crises, known as the “Powder Alarms,” and Paul Revere’s central role in the resistance movement among Boston Whigs – including the famous Sons of Liberty – during those fraught years before the shooting began.


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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)


David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride


Portrait of Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”


Intolerable Acts


Thomas Gage