John Hancock

More than an artful calligrapher, John Hancock forswore the austerity of his fellow Bostonians, and their extremism.

We hold this truth to be self-evident: John Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence was too big.

What looks like an excess of strength may really be a deficit of liberty.

The Declaration of Independence condemns King George III. But the British were not to blame for one of the war’s most infamous conflagrations.

The commander-in-chief initially barred black soldiers from joining the ranks, but he came to understand the value—both moral and strategic—of a diverse force.

The revolutionary roots of a corrosive national pastime.

On Nathanael Greene’s inauspicious start.

Right from the beginning, a commercial spirit and the wealth it generated were essential to creating and constituting America.

While many Americans gushed about the effectiveness of the ‘Destruction of the Tea,’ others thought it went too far.

The shadow of Samuel Adams, a crafty and government-wary revolutionary, lingers over the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Which personality of the American Revolution or the founding era is remembered for the wrong reasons, and why?

Parallels between the American Revolution and the U.S. Capitol riot.

Vaccines against smallpox during the Revolutionary War are one example of how mandates have protected the health of Americans for more than two centuries.

There have been at least eight provinces in British North America labeled the "fourteenth colony." They cannot all claim the same title.

A public uprising forced Boston to prioritize fighting smallpox over the economy in 1792.

A new book details how the young nation regarded its recent and more ancient pasts.

Ed Ayers visits public historians in Boston and Philadelphia and explores what “freedom” meant to those outside the halls of power in the Revolutionary era.

History suggests the value of a broader understanding of patriotism, one that goes beyond saluting-the-flag loyalty and battlefield bravery.

The British were a pain, to be sure, but what really caused him trouble were his teeth.

Of all the precedents the first president set, this is one of his most overlooked — and most important.