Ben Franklin's World

BFW Revisited: The Reintegration of American Loyalists

What would it take for you to forgive a neighbor who sided against you in a civil war? And what would you say to win back a community that you had fought against? In our

BFW Revisited: Loyalism in the British Atlantic World

In the late winter of 1775, colonists in a village outside of New York City hoisted the royal standard of King George III 75 feet into the air. The standard raisers sig

BFW Bonus: We Want More History

American history is in the news a lot these days. We see and hear about fights over monuments, textbooks, and the stories we should include or exclude from our museums an

451 The Court-Martial That Put The American Revolution on Trial

In December 1777, Continental Army Colonel David Henley climbed off his horse to discipline a drunk British prisoner of war who was screaming epithets about Americans and

BFW Revisited: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

What caused the American Revolution? Taxation without representation? Colonies that had outgrown their dependence on the British Empire? Or something harder to see: a q

450 Whose Revolution? The Delaware and the War for Independence

In December 1776, a Delaware Chief named White Eyes stood before the Second Continental Congress. He had not come to declare himself a revolutionary, nor had he come to p

BFW Revisited: The Brafferton Indian School, Part 1

In 1723, the College of William & Mary opened the Brafferton building, a permanent home for an Indian School the college had been chartered to run and struggled to fill f

449 Stealing America: Indigenous Slavery and the American Revolution

More than half a million Indigenous people were enslaved within the present-day borders of the United States. Historian Linford Fisher spent fifteen years in archives a

BFW Revisited: American Expansion & the Political Economy of Plunder

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what did liberty and

448 The Declaration of Independence as American Scripture

The engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives building in Washington, DC. Millions of visitors flock to see it and the othe

BFW Revisited Threads of Power

For the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations People, the American Revolution brought not liberty, but land loss, displacement, and the dismantling of their world. The new Unite

447 The Other Committee Members: Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and the Declaration of Independence

Five men served on the Continental Congress’s Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the oth

BFW Revisited: A Declaration in Draft, 2026

Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect? In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scho

446 The Declaration of Independence at 250

250 years after its signing, the Declaration of Independence remains an unfinished document. Its famous assertion "that all men are created equal" and endowed with unalie

445 How Independence Happened, Pt 3: The Articles of Confederation

The man Congress chose to draft the United States’ first constitution refused to vote for independence. John Dickinson wrote a bold plan, one with a strong central gover

444 How Independence Happened, Part 2: The Model Treaty

Declaring independence on July 2, 1776 was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recogni

443 How Independence Happened, Part 1: The Lee Resolution

Declaring independence on July 2, 1776, was only the beginning. To actually become a nation, the United States needed something else: foreign allies, international recog

BFW Revisited: Reading the Declaration of Independence for Equality

On July 4th, 2026, the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence announced a new nation to the world. But how well do we actually know the docum

442 Everyday Military Life in the American Revolution

When we picture the American Revolution, we picture battles. But for the men and women who actually lived and fought in it, the Revolution was also a job with mess rotati

BFW Revisited: Valley Forge

Most of us learned the same story: During the winter at Valley Forge, George Washington's army suffered and endured. Ragged soldiers huddled together in frozen huts and g