All language subtitles for American.Historys.Biggest.Fibs.with.Lucy.Worsley-S01E01-The.American.Revolution.srt - 2

History - it's often presented
as a set of facts and dates,

of victories and defeats,

of monarchs and presidents,

all consigned to an unchanging past.

Huzza!

Huzza!

But it's not like that at all.

History is the knitting together
of rival interpretations,

deliberate manipulations
of the truth,

and, sometimes, alternative facts.

In this series,
I'll be lifting the lid

on three of American history's
greatest national stories.

The Civil War.

Was it really a battle
to reunite the nation

and liberate the slaves
in the south?

The Cold War supremacy.

American dream or nuclear nightmare?

And in this programme,
the American Revolution.

How a British colony

won its freedom from
the biggest empire in the world.

This is the story of the birth
of the United States.

It's a tale of David and Goliath

with high ideals and heroism
and the ringing of the Liberty Bell.

It's a story that continues
to inspire in politics,

literature and even on Broadway.

But how much of America's
founding story

is founded on fact?

Did the Liberty Bell really ring out
on July the 4th, 1776?

Who really won
the War of Independence?

American rebels
or the King of France?

The Americans could never have
brought themselves up

by their own boot straps.

And was George Washington
a man who truly believed

in liberty and equality?

It shakes the very foundation
of American history.

Generations of politicians
and poets and protesters

have used the story
of the American Revolution.

Sometimes to unite
the American people,

sometimes to divide them.

And the story they've told
often super-sizes the truth

and comes with a side order of fibs.

Early in July 1776,

a future American president
wrote a letter to his wife.

He was a leader
in the American Revolution.

And the previous day,

the United States had declared
its independence from Great Britain.

John Adams knew that this day
would be celebrated

for generations to come.

He said that it ought to be
solemnised

with pomp and parade.

BAND PLAYS
And games!

And guns! And bonfires!

And illuminations!

From one end of America
to the other.

The 2nd of July, he said,

would become the most memorable day
in American history

and he was very nearly right.

But the 2nd of July, of course,
was soon forgotten.

The wording of the Declaration
of Independence

wasn't finally approved
until two days later.

BOTH: Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

ALL: Happy 4th of July!

APPLAUSE

MUSIC: STAR SPANGLED BANNER

The British Empire's
first American colony

was founded in Virginia in 1607.

By 1732, Britain had 13 colonies
along the Atlantic coast.

But in the 1760s,

American rebels rose up
against British taxes.

They called themselves Patriots
and, after eight years of war,

a plucky army of rebel farmers
won its revolt

against the British Empire.

Heroic General George Washington
became the first president

of the "land of the free".

A nation promising liberty
and equality to all.

This version of the story is central
to America's national identity

and it's given the American people
a sense of special destiny -

that their country is going to lead
the rest of the world to freedom.

But just as with any type
of history,

the line between fact and fiction
is blurred.

The American Revolution,
so the story goes,

started with a tea party.

In December 1773,

three British-owned ships
sat in Boston harbour

laden with tea.

But the people of Boston wouldn't
let them unload their cargo

because that tea
came with a British tax,

levied by a parliament in London,

where Americans had no votes
and no voice.

The disgruntled American colonists
wanted to send the British

a clear message - no taxation
without representation.

So one night, they dressed
up as Mohawk Indians,

they came storming onto the ships,
they cracked open the crates,

then they threw the tea...

..right into Boston Harbour.

Yes!

This has been celebrated in history
as a jolly jape in fancy dress.

A glorious stunt
that sparked a revolution.

Huzza!

But the protest came after years
of dark and bloody violence

between American colonists
and British troops in the city.

And the rebels were disguised
as Mohawk Indians to avoid arrest.

This wasn't called a tea party
at the time.

Many in America saw it as a crime.

Now, some influential people -

people like Benjamin Franklin
and George Washington -

thought that the destruction
of the tea was a bad idea.

Destroying private property?

That could even damage their cause.

The Mohawk stunt also allowed
the British to condemn

the American colonists
as a criminal mob.

So the destruction of the tea was
originally a violent, aggressive,

illegal action.

When did it become
this sort of cuddly tea party?

Well, it became known as
the tea party about 50 years

after the event, in the mid-1820s,

and that was at the time when
a lot of those who took part

in the tea party were
beginning to die off.

So, there was an attempt, then,
beginning around that time

to reflect back on that act
and it was not thought of

as an act of destruction, but rather
something that was more patriotic

and that had become
sort of a cornerstone

of the revolution itself.

One of the people
who remembered the event,

although he reportedly was only
about five years old at the time,

gave this vial of tea, in 1840,
gave it to this institution,

and so this tea says,

"Tea thrown into the Boston
Harbour, December 16th, 1773."

Do you believe it's the tea?
I'm doubtful that it's the tea.

Well, you should be doubtful,
but I think it's possible.

And the point is that in 1840,
when he gave it to this museum,

he was wanting to remember...
Exactly.

..this cornerstone
of American history...

Whether it's real or not doesn't
really matter. It doesn't, does it?

It's just the story that's told.
It's the story.

It was all part of this renewal
and revival of this event that

by this time, much of the violence
associated with it was forgotten.

The story of the tea party
takes on a new meaning

with each retelling.

In the 19th century, it became
patriotic fun with dressing up.

In the 1970s, it was used
to support calls

for Richard Nixon to be impeached.

And in the 21st century,

it's been adopted by the radical
right's Tea Party movement.

We are going to make America
great again.

Thank you.
Thank you very much.

Thank you.

CHEERING

Back in the 18th century,

the tea party provokes a dramatic
response from the British.

In 1774,

George III and the British
Parliament punished Boston.

Political meetings were shut down.

And the port was closed.

Tensions mounted.

In 1775,

the rebels were stockpiling
guns and ammunition,

they were getting ready for war,

but the British were onto them.

British troops were ordered to
go to seize and destroy weapons

that were being stored
in the Massachusetts towns

of Lexington and Concord.

The American Patriots
got wind of the British plan,

so they set up a signalling system.

When the British mobilised,

lanterns would appear in the tower
at the North Church here in Boston.

One lantern meant that the British
were marching to Concord.

Two meant that they were travelling
by boat.

At the signal, a Patriot would
ride through the countryside

to alert the local militia.

Paul Revere was a local craftsman.

That night, he would become
a folk hero.

Paul Revere is celebrated
as the single courageous hero

who rode through the night
to warn the Americans

that the British were coming.

But this is actually
something of a fib.

And it was all cooked up
by one of America's greatest poets.

In 1860, 85 years after the event,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
wrote a stirring poem

about Revere's ride.

It's been learned by generations
of American school kids.

Listen, my children,
and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

Listen, my children,
and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

But the poem isn't the only
version of the story.

Revere himself described his ride

in a statement made
soon after the event.

He then wrote a more elaborate
version 23 years later.

In each retelling of the story,
though,

events become more dramatic
and Revere takes a different route.

In the poem, Revere sees the signal
in the church tower and sets off -

a lone rider in the moonlit night.

The fate of history
is in one man's hands.

But according to Revere's
own account,

there's a second rider - Mr Dawes.

Revere rode north of the British
route to avoid discovery,

while Dawes rode to the south of it.

After stopping at Lexington
to warn rebel leaders,

they then headed towards Concord
with a third man.

But poetry prefers a solitary hero.

David taking on Goliath.

Longfellow's poem takes
Paul Revere, the lone hero,

step-by-step through
the Massachusetts countryside.

By 1am, he reaches Lexington.

2am, he gets to Concord.

Hurray! He's in time to wake
the sleeping locals.

Mission accomplished.

Now, here's a funny thing.

If you look at Revere's own
accounts, this is one of them,

you discover that he never actually
made it to Concord that night,

because after leaving Lexington
he was captured by the British.

In reality, it was the third rider
who warned Concord

that the British were on the march.

But Longfellow's poetic version

guaranteed a place in history
for Paul Revere.

The morning after Revere's ride,
the local militia in Lexington

were ready and waiting
for the British.

GUNFIRE

But the British Army overwhelmed
the rebels.

A company of British soldiers
then marched to the bridge

in the neighbouring town of Concord.

By the time the British
got to the bridge,

there were 500 militia men
waiting for them on this side

and battle broke out.

The British had only sent
100 soldiers.

They were pretty soon
outnumbered, overpowered,

and they began to retreat
back towards Boston.

73 British soldiers were killed
in Lexington and Concord,

and 50 Americans.

At the battlefield in Concord

is a memorial to the American
colonists who fought here.

These men were not
professional soldiers.

They were the local militia.

In the colonies,
all men were trained to fight

with their own muskets

to protect their communities
in an emergency.

This statue celebrates the militia
men as ordinary farmers.

He's just a regular bloke,
if implausibly handsome.

The statue was put up
100 years after the battle,

and you can tell he's ordinary

because he's not wearing
a military uniform

and, although he's carrying
a musket,

he's brought his plough with him,
too.

At the foot of the statue are lines
of verse from the Concord Hymn,

written by the poet
Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1837.

The poem talks about the Patriots
as "the embattled farmers"

who "fired the shot heard
round the world".

These are the little people
taking on the forces of history.

They are amateurs taking on
the professional British Army.

Once again,
it's David and Goliath.

This image of brave farmers
taking up arms to beat the British

has become a central part
of the powerful mythology

of the American Revolution.

But it's a distorted version
of what really happened.

So, these amateur soldiers,

were they the men who really
defeated the British?

That's what we're supposed to think,
isn't it? That is the ideal.

That's why we have the statue of
somebody going back to his plough,

but in fact, the American leaders
knew that they couldn't do that

with just militia troops,
so they needed a professional army,

what became the Continental Army,
to win the war.

Three months after Lexington
and Concord,

Congress created
the Continental Army.

At first, it united the local
militias from across the colonies.

Take aim.

But under General George Washington,

it started recruiting and training
as a professional army.

Fire!

So this Continental Army,
this proper army, it won the war.

What happens next?
There was great rejoicing.

Everybody was...celebrated the
victory

and then the army disbanded.

This was because the United States
felt it was safe

now that Britain was recognising
its independence,

and because they did not want
the expense

or the possible danger of
professional forces hanging around.

What's the danger? They're here to
keep us safe, aren't they? Tyranny.

Tyranny. The possibility
of a military dictator

or an oligarchy of rich men

taking over our fine, fragile
republic was the idea.

At the end of the war,
even General George Washington

resigned his post and returned
to his farm in Virginia.

A new nation would have no
major professional army,

but men would continue to bear arms
and serve in the local militia.

They felt that the ideal citizen
was somebody who had land,

a family, a business,
and was rooted in the community,

and not one of these restless
soldiers obeying orders

from some higher power.

So, your ideal citizen
owns his own gun.

At that time, yes. To be fully
a member of the community

in its self-defence, you needed
to be part of the militia,

and that usually meant
having your own muskets.

This belief that the founders
had in their citizen soldiers

was so important, it got enshrined
in the new nation's Bill of Rights.

The Second Amendment says
that having a militia

is absolutely necessary
for security.

And it says that the people's right
to bear arms

shall not be infringed.

This statement still forms the basis
of US gun law to this day,

almost as if Americans are still
living in the 18th century.

And to me, the irony is
that it wasn't even

these normal blokes with guns
who defeated the British anyway.

At Lexington and Concord,
the first shots of war were fired.

GUNFIRE

But this wasn't yet a revolution
to topple a king,

so now a new battle began
over how to use the story

of the conflict
to win support from George III.

Each side produced conflicting
eyewitness accounts.

The British claimed that they
weren't looking for a fight,

they just wanted to capture
those military supplies.

They said that the American rebels
fired first

so they were only acting
in self-defence.

Also, the Americans abused the dead.

They cut off their scalps.

Though the Americans said
the British started it.

"They attacked unprovoked."

Also, they were thirsty for blood.

The British are supposed to have
chucked pregnant women

out of their beds and killed
unarmed people in their own homes.

Whatever really happened,
American patriots hoped

that George III would intervene

when he understood the injustice
against his colonial subjects.

The Patriots chartered a fast ship

to take their version of events
to England.

It arrived two weeks before
the British Army's own account.

In mid-1775,

the majority in America
were still opposed to independence.

Their beef was with Parliament.

They remained loyal to George III.

But radicals, inspired by
Enlightenment thinking,

wanted a revolution.

And they could only justify this
if the King was seen

as a tyrant, acting against
the interests of the people.

If America was going to make a go
of it as an independent nation,

then the Patriot leaders
needed to convince the people

that George III was a cruel tyrant.

In the 1760s,
the King had been celebrated

for defending the colonists
against Parliament.

As recently as 1770,

a statue to George III
had been put up here,

in New York's Bowling Green Park.

But, in 1775,

further bloodshed in Boston
convinced King George

of the Americans' treachery.

In August 1775,
George III proclaimed

that his American subjects
were now definitely in a state

of open rebellion

and that his troops must do
their utmost to put it down.

Now, to the Americans who still saw
themselves as loyal to George III,

this was a terrible blow.

Their king had just turned them
into traitors.

At the opening of the British
Parliament in October 1775,

the King repeated his accusations
of rebellion.

And when the news reached America,

a piece of propaganda was about to
make the King look even worse.

This is the Pennsylvania
Evening Post

for the 9th of January, 1776.

This edition contains the whole
of the King's speech.

It goes on for quite some time.

It finishes here on page 15,
and down here is an advert

for a new pamphlet to be published
on the very same day.

The topic is the tyranny
of the monarchy.

The title of the pamphlet
is Common Sense

and the author is Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine was a British-born
radical

who became a leading voice in both
the American and French Revolutions.

He believed independence was
the answer to America's problems.

Common Sense was his argument
for a revolution.

Now, Thomas Paine was really
brilliant at using simple,

persuasive language
that appealed to a mass audience

and Common Sense became
an almost instant bestseller.

In it, he never directly names
King George III,

but, by implication,
he was pretty rude about him.

Paine talks about
the "Pharaoh of England"

and the "Royal brute".

He was casting George III
as the villain of this story.

Within six months of the publication
of Common Sense,

in July 1776,

the United States
denounced the monarch

and proclaimed itself
an independent nation.

America's Declaration
of Independence is remembered

for its high ideals
of liberty and equality,

but that's just one line.

The bulk of the document
was a tirade of grievances

against a tyrannous King George.

After a public reading
of the Declaration of Independence

here in New York, this little square
got taken all to pieces.

There had been crowns
on the top of these railings,

which were hacked off.

You can still see the marks
of the blows.

And the metal statue of King George
III that had stood in the middle

was pulled down,
his head was cut off,

and his body was melted down
and turned into musket balls

to be used against
the King's own troops.

The toppling of King George's statue
looks like a violent,

revolutionary act.

But this isn't the image of 1776

the Founding Fathers
wanted us to remember.

In 1817, the US Congress
commissioned

John Trumbull's painting,
The Declaration Of Independence.

It hangs in the nation's
Capitol Building

in Washington, DC.

It shows Thomas Jefferson presenting
the draft of the Declaration

to Congress in Philadelphia.

At the moment of its birth,

the new nation was at all-out war
with the British Empire.

But history paints the founding
of the United States

as a calm, formal scene,

speaking of harmony and high ideals.

The Declaration of Independence
was signed in this room.

It explains why America
is fighting its war,

why it wants to be independent,

how it's going to form itself
into a nation.

It's quite a practical document
for the short term.

It explains how things
are going to unfold.

But the values it presents
for the long term

have turned it into
almost a sacred text.

What makes us exceptional,
what makes us American,

is our allegiance to an idea
articulated in a declaration

made more than two centuries ago.

We hold these truths
to be self-evident

that all men are created equal...

That they are endowed
by their creator...

With certain inalienable rights.

Among these are life, liberty...

And the pursuit of happiness.

The Declaration of Independence
has gone down in history

as a unanimous statement
of the beliefs of a new nation.

But the writing of the Declaration

exposed a series of highly-charged
disagreements.

The document had to satisfy the
demands of people from 13 states

with opposing views
on divisive subjects

like religion and slavery.

Professor Danielle Allen has studied
the drafts of the Declaration

line by line.

So, the first draft had
an incredible paragraph

condemning King George for
a slave trade that was violating,

in the language of the draft,
the "sacred rights

"of life and liberty
of a distant people in Africa."

And that was cut out by Congress,
that was a pro-slavery moment

where it was too much to say
explicitly that Africans

had the same rights of life
and liberty as everybody else.

But then we get the anti-slavery
moment, which is in the phrase,

"Life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness".

So, the tradition of thinking
about rights and the law of nature

that emerged in the 17th
and 18th century

often invoked the idea that
what governments should do

is defend life, liberty
and property.

In the American context,
the concept of property had become

closely connected to a defence
of slavery, so there was a debate

between the happiness concept
and the property concept.

The happiness concept won.

It's a compromise concept, because
the people who were against slavery

could see it as eroding
the justification for slavery.

The people who were in favour
of slavery could think,

"Yes, my enslaved people
make me happy!",

so they too had a way of seeing
themselves in the document.

Do you think that this is really
a very clever document indeed,

because everybody can look at it
and see what they want to see.

It's a beautiful compromise.

Well, we've forgotten these days,
but one of the core elements

of democracy is compromise,

which is interesting, because often
in the US we like to think,

"Oh, what was the original
intent of the founders?",

and the fact is, there isn't
a single answer to that,

because they had these moments
of choice, they'd pick an action,

they agreed on the action,
but for different reasons.

Even the Declaration's
most memorable statement,

"That all men are created equal",

was open to interpretation.

Did the fact that everybody
was equal, in the basic sense

of their wellbeing mattering,

mean that everybody should
participate in political power?

And the answer to that question
for them was no.

John Adams writes to his wife
Abigail when she says,

"What about the ladies?
Where are they in this?"

He writes to her and says,
"Yes, your wellbeing,

"your life, liberty and happiness
are a part of this,

"but we men, we will be in charge
of ensuring that the government

"succeeds in delivering that."

Those white men with property
who are going to control power.

Every 4th of July,
the Declaration of Independence

is celebrated
as the birth of the United States.

But it wasn't the end of the war.

America still had to beat
the British on the battlefield.

But the Americans didn't have
enough arms and ammunition

to win a war by themselves.

So, to get rid of one king,
they turned for help to another -

King Louis XVI of France.

Within a week of signing
the Declaration of Independence,

the American revolutionaries sent
a copy to the French monarch.

The British were France's
greatest enemy.

Raaarrr!

Raarr!

In 1756, Britain and France
had gone to war

over territories in North America.

This became known as
the Seven Years' War.

It was a battle for
imperial supremacy.

But the British...came out on top.

And the French weren't happy
about it.

France lost all of its Canadian
colonies to Britain,

as well as parts of the Caribbean.

And all they had to show for
their efforts was crippling debt.

Sacrebleu!

Imperial France saw
the American War of Independence

as the chance to get its revenge.

In 1776, they began smuggling arms
to support the Patriot cause.

Then, in 1778, the French
joined the United States

as official allies.

The main thing that changed
was the introduction

of the French Navy
into the force. Mmm.

The British were always dependent
upon their Navy to keep themselves

supplied from London,

to move troops around
from place to place,

and with the French Navy
now on American shores,

all of that was cut off.

Britannia no longer ruled the waves.
Mmm.

And for them, it changed completely
the nature of the war.

Do you think that America
could have won

without this help from France?
No, absolutely not.

America could never have won
the war without France.

This is not the story
of the plucky little Americans

with their muskets and their ploughs
going out and having a go

against the mighty, evil British,
is it?

And it never was true
and it was never a good fit.

Erm, the Americans could never
have brought themselves up

by their own bootstraps.

In fact, the real story
of the American Revolution

is that the United States
became the centrepiece

of an international coalition
which together fought

to achieve a common purpose -
to defeat a common adversary.

The last major land battle of
the Revolutionary War was in 1781.

In Yorktown, Virginia,
the British surrendered

to George Washington's army
of American and French troops.

But the decisive role of Imperial
France in the American victory

was very quickly played down.

The war was over, yet the battle
to control the story

of the revolution
was just getting started.

# Oooo-ooo-oooh... #

The early histories
of the revolution told the story

almost as a morality tale
with good triumphing,

and that's because the new nation
was still finding its feet.

It needed stability and purpose.

Meanwhile, the French,

well, they were now having a
violent revolution their own.

They were busy chopping
each other's heads off.

Emerson wrote his Concord Hymn
in 1837.

By this time, Americans saw
themselves as triumphant underdogs.

His embattled farmers
were celebrated in poetry,

set to the tune of an old psalm.

# By the rude bridge
that arched... #

The revolution was becoming
remembered as a sacred story

outlining America's
God-given destiny

to lead others towards liberty.

In the 1840s,
its conquest of Mexican

and Native American territory

was presented as the divine destiny

of an exceptional nation.

The idea that we controlled
our own destiny

did not fit very well
with the idea that we depended

upon European powers
to support our birth

and so that part of the story
became left out over time.

# Free

# Bid time and Nature
gently spare... #

In the first half
of the 19th century,

the nation's patriotism
was growing ever stronger.

People were eager to tell stories
of America's revolutionary heroes.

And if they don't exist,
then why not make them up?

Mm-hmm!

Take the story of a woman
named Molly Pitcher.

Legend has it that Molly wandered
the field at the Battle of Monmouth

in 1778, bringing water
to her husband

and his fellow soldiers.

Suddenly...
GUNSHOT

Ah! Molly's husband
is shot in the head.

He falls to the ground.

She drops her pail of water
and she cries out,

"Lie there, my darling,
I will avenge thee!"

Molly Pitcher bravely takes
up her husband's position

at the cannon and battles on.

CANNON FIRE

The next morning, George Washington
himself gives Molly a piece of gold

and assures her that her services
will not be forgotten.

But, in some versions of the story,

George Washington also
makes her a Sergeant.

And in others,
the husband isn't killed,

he's only injured.

And in yet others, it's not a bucket
that Molly's carrying around

the battlefield, it's a pitcher,
and the thirsty soldiers shout out,

"Oi, Molly, we're thirsty! Bring
your pitcher! Molly, pitcher!"

Molly Pitcher.

Molly is an appealing heroine

and her battle-scarred
19th-century image

still appears in 21st-century
schoolbooks.

But Molly Pitcher is a fib.

You'll find lots of books about her,
but there are no first-hand accounts

that place her
at the Battle of Monmouth.

She's probably an amalgamation

of several brave Patriot women.

Some people think that
she's Margaret Corbin,

a woman wounded in battle
at Fort Washington

who received a war pension.

Others claim
she's Mary Hays McCauley.

Mary even has a memorial

claiming her as the original
Molly Pitcher.

But Molly's legend sprung up
in the 1830s and '40s,

when the people who'd lived through
the revolution were dying out.

Historians started collecting
anecdotes second-hand

and historical accuracy
was often sacrificed

in favour of a good story.

Fire!

The Liberty Bell
is another late arrival

in the story of the birth
of the United States.

The bell used to hang in the tower
above Independence Hall,

where the Declaration
of Independence was signed.

It was put up in 1753
to call politicians to meetings

and to alert the public
to important announcements.

When the Declaration of Independence
was first read in public

and the Liberty Bell
was sounded in celebration,

a witness said it rang
as if it meant something.

In our time,
it means something still.

But the Liberty Bell's starring role
in the American Revolution

only entered the story

71 years after the Declaration
of Independence was signed.

In the 1840s, George Lippard was
the bestselling author in America.

Lippard was best known for his
sensationalist Gothic tales,

filled with gory murders and vice.

But in 1847, he turned his hand
to historical fiction.

Lippard wrote a story that was set
on the 4th of July, 1776.

He introduces the character
of an old man in humble attire,

but he still has a gleam in his eye.

He's the kindly bell-ringer
who's in charge of the Liberty Bell.

And then there's a young boy
with flaxen hair

and laughing eyes of summer blue.

The story goes that
the blue-eyed boy

had the job of signalling
to the old man

to ring the bell when the men
below declared independence.

And what a super-exciting moment
it is.

The little boy,
swelling his little chest,

raised himself on tiptoe
and shouted a single word,

"Ring!"

Now the old man is young again,
his veins are filled with new life.

Backward and forward
with sturdy strokes,

he swings the tongue,
the bell speaks out!

Everybody goes absolutely wild.

The bell speaks to the city
and to the world.

It's a great story.

It's the Hollywood version
of the 4th of July

before Hollywood even exists.

And it's also entirely made up.

It sounds like heresy,
but there's no evidence at all

that the Liberty Bell was rung
on the 4th of July, 1776.

On July the 8th,
some of the city bells were rung

to announce the public reading
of the Declaration,

but the steeple at the old
statehouse was in disrepair,

so it's unlikely that Old Liberty
was ever rung that week.

But you can't keep
a good story down.

Five years later, a significant
historian called Benson Lossing

published his Pictorial Field-Book
of the American Revolution,

and he too included
the "blue-eyed boy"

giving the signal to ring the bell.

Two years after that,

and a biography of George Washington
is published,

complete with the "bright-eyed boy".

So, in less than a decade,
Lippard's historical fiction

has become accepted
as historical fact.

Thanks to Lippard,
the Liberty Bell has become

a central part
of the American story.

The body of Abraham Lincoln
was brought to Philadelphia

to lie in state
next to the Liberty Bell

after his assassination in 1865.

In 1917,

its image helps to raise 21 billion
for the US war effort.

Thank you, all.

And its legend has continued
into the 21st century.

And each of the founders coming here

would know the ring
of the Liberty Bell.

It rang to announce
the first public reading

of the Declaration of Independence.

But in the late 19th century,

a new symbol of the revolution
was forged,

and it would eclipse
even the Liberty Bell

in the national consciousness.

The Statue of Liberty is a symbol
of the American Revolution

at its biggest and boldest.

Liberty, the central idea from
the Declaration of Independence,

was reimagined
as a 300-foot goddess...

..armed with a guiding light

and a tablet bearing
the revolutionary date -

July 4th, 1776.

But her meaning
has never been set in stone.

She's come to represent
all kinds of different things.

The revolutionary alliance
with France,

America enlightening
the rest of the world

and a nation that welcomes
immigrants.

Each of these things, though,
comes with its own little fibs.

The Statue of Liberty
was a gift from the French

to celebrate their almost forgotten
alliance in the American Revolution.

But this wasn't a gift
from the French Government.

It was a message to it,
to guard against tyranny.

The Frenchman who proposed
the statue, Edouard de Laboulaye,

was worried about the lack
of democracy in his own country.

He wanted a statue to honour
the United States

as an example
of a successful republic.

But this great American symbol
wasn't originally designed

for the United States.

The sculptor,
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi,

had been planning to build
a similar statue for Egypt.

He travelled to Egypt
and he showed his designs

of a gigantic figure of a woman
to stand at the entrance

to the Suez Canal,

and she was to be veiled
in the Egyptian fashion,

she was to hold high a lantern
and she was to represent Egypt

carrying the light of progress
to Asia.

And this idea excited
the Egyptians initially,

but the expense was so high and
they were expected to pay for it.

They turned it down.

So, he just redesigned it
so it would be a European figure,

it would be a Roman goddess instead,

and that it would represent freedom
and not progress.

The Statue of Liberty
was unveiled in 1886.

But to some, a statue celebrating
the ideal of liberty was misleading.

Women protested
at the unveiling ceremony.

She might be Lady Liberty,
but she still couldn't vote.

While African-Americans pointed out
that liberty and equality

still weren't realities for them.

Soon, a new meaning for
the Statue of Liberty emerged.

During fundraising
to build the statue,

a well-known Jewish poet
called Emma Lazarus

had written a poem to raise money.

Lazarus was an advocate for refugees

and her poem gave Lady Liberty
a new political message.

Lazarus's poem was called
The New Colossus.

In it, she showed Lady Liberty

almost standing on the doorstep
of America, welcoming people in.

The line that everybody remembers
goes,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

"your huddled masses,

"yearning to breathe free."

Nearly 20 years after the opening,
Lazarus's friends had a verse

from that poem engraved on a plaque
at the base of the statue.

And now the poem
was all the more resonant.

In 1892,

an immigration centre had opened
on neighbouring Ellis Island.

Lady Liberty would now be forever
connected with the idea

of the United States welcoming
immigrants from all over the world.

Do you think that the key
to her success

in becoming this symbol of America
is the fact that she's so flexible?

She can mean almost anything
to anybody, can't she?

Yes, scholars have called her
a hollow icon,

and that means that because
she's really empty inside,

she can be filled with
anyone's notion

of what liberty means to them.

That did transform her into having
all kinds of new meanings,

like a symbol for immigrants,

a symbol for American nationalism,

a symbol for all sorts of ideas.

What started out as a powerful
symbol of the French alliance

in the War of Independence
had been overtaken by another story.

But in the 20th century,
there would be new opportunities

for the story of the revolution
to shape the American landscape.

JAZZ MUSIC

Jazz-age New York was the era
of the skyscraper -

an emblem of a country
looking to the future.

But at the same time,

American architecture
was also looking to the past.

Churches, post offices, schools
were being built in a style

known as Colonial Revival.

George Washington High School
was built in 1925,

just five years before
the Chrysler Building opened.

The name of the school refers
to the American Revolution

and so too does its design.

That red brick
and those white columns

and especially the bell tower
on top,

they all remind me of
Independence Hall in Philadelphia,

or some of the 18th-century
buildings of Boston.

JAZZ MUSIC

Now, anybody could live in a home
or eat in a diner

that looked like 1770s America.

The Colonial Revival was pitched
as a truly American-style.

You were supposed to look at it and
somehow feel the special qualities

of the Founding Fathers.

Their courage,
or maybe their virtue.

It was used for public buildings
to show people how to be American.

In fact, architecture could be a way
to make America great again.

But this is an idealised version
of the revolutionary era.

It comes complete with
heroic Founding Fathers

who embody the Declaration's high
ideals of liberty and equality.

And it's another distortion
of the truth.

In the heart of Philadelphia,
next to Independence Hall,

is the site
of the President's House.

Long before the White House
as we know it existed,

George Washington, as President,
lived here.

But the house that existed
on this site

has a darker side to its story,

because the unpalatable truth is
that Washington was a slave-owner.

At the time of his death in 1799,

there were over 300 slaves

working on Washington's
Virginia plantation.

Nine slaves worked for him
here in Philadelphia.

When the foundations
of the President's House

were discovered in the year 2000,
a campaign started

to have Washington's Philadelphia
slaves remembered at the site.

Now, their names are carved
in stone here

and their story is recorded.

But only after an eight-year battle

fought by activists
like Michael Coard.

Why do some Americans,
and some very powerful Americans,

not want to think of Washington
as a slave-owner?

It shakes the very foundation
of American history.

If there were ever a man-god
in American history,

it's George Washington.

George Washington is the foundation
of what America represents,

so if you find out that
at the very core,

at the very foundation, this man
had such a horrific blemish,

that blemish being slavery, people
don't want to admit the truth.

If he's flawed,
then America's flawed.

How did George Washington
treat his slaves?

Well, any person who enslaves
any other person automatically

treats them bad by enslaving them,
that's the first thing.

But even beyond that,

George Washington was
a miserable miser

when it came to his
enslaved population.

He was notorious for having them
run around in rags,

having them hungry,
having them emaciated.

In 1780, there was something called

the Pennsylvania Gradual
Abolition Act.

They passed a law saying, "Hey,
if you bring enslaved human beings

"into this state and you hold them
for six straight months,

"at the end of that six-month
period,

"they could petition for
their freedom." Yes, yes.

So, what George Washington would do
is wait for five months, 29 days,

take them across state lines
and then bring them back.

Now, people say, "Well, yeah,
he kind of skirted the law."

No, he didn't just skirt the law,
he broke the law.

Nobody wants to hear that about
our great hero George Washington.

Absolutely! Oh, my goodness!

And it's so funny, because if you
want to say George Washington

was a great general,
you can say that.

If you want to say George Washington
was a great president,

you can say that.
But can you be a great human being

when you hold 316 fellow
human beings in brutal bondage

and play the type of games he did

with Pennsylvania's
Gradual Abolition Act?

Why is it important
to tell this story

about George Washington,
slave-owner?

It's important in order for America
and ultimately the world

to be able to move toward
racial healing.

We might not ever reach
that kumbaya moment

where we all come together
as a human species,

but at least we can begin
to respect one another.

And you respect people when you
find out where they came from,

what they're about.

In order to reach the truth
you have to tell the truth,

and you have to tell the truth
at the beginning.

The beginning of American political
history is George Washington.

You've got to tell the truth,
the whole truth

and nothing but the truth.

# Oooo-oooh ...#

In the 21st century,

a battle still rages to decide
whose version of history gets told.

# Oooo-ooo-oooh... #

And in 2015, that story
stepped on stage

on Broadway.

# Alexander Hamilton

# My name is... #

Hamilton is a ground-breaking
retelling

of the birth of the United States
as a hip-hop musical.

# Just you wait, just you wait

# When he was ten, his father... #

Created by Lin-Manuel Miranda,
it's based on the life

of Founding Father
Alexander Hamilton.

George Washington's right-hand man
on the battlefield

and Treasury Secretary
in his Cabinet.

It's been praised by critics
and presidents,

won 11 Tony Awards, a Grammy,

and a Pulitzer Prize.

To its fans, the musical Hamilton
is a revolution in itself.

It tells the story
of the American Revolution,

but all the historical characters
are played by actors of colour.

The only white one plays
poor old King George III.

So, the stage is full
of African-Americans,

Puerto Ricans and Chinese-Americans.

There's a big sign on the front
of the theatre,

and it says, "History is happening
here in Manhattan."

Hamilton's racial diversity has made
the story of the Founding Fathers

more accessible
for modern Americans.

But historian Lyra Monteiro believes
that this masks the inequalities

at the heart of a revolution
fought for liberty and equality.

I saw the show the week
it opened on Broadway

and I was blown away by, you know,
the quality of it as a work of art.

But immediately I was, like,
"Wait a second, this is not..."

It's not cool that these guys
are so cool, right?

By turning the Founding Fathers
into these, you know,

interesting, cool, clever, exciting,
you know, relatable guys, right,

in suggesting that they're
just the same as, you know,

African-Americans who were raised
in the projects,

it ends up obscuring, really,
how much that founding moment

was about the oppression of everyone
who wasn't a white man.

It was not a revolution
for everybody.

These are definitely people
who did not want the ancestors

of the performers onstage

to count as citizens
in the nation they created.

Do you think it's possible
that there could be a generation

of school kids who go away thinking
that all of the Founding Fathers

were great guys, just like Obama?

Yeah! I think there's a real
possibility of that.

And I think there's a real problem
with that too, though,

because it continues to perpetuate
this idea that

in order to have a rightful claim
to power in this country,

a rightful claim
to be in this country,

you have to show that you have a
claim to the country's past, right?

And so black men and Latino men
representing the founders

is a way of saying,
"Look, we belong here too.

"We're as American as white people."

And I think that's kind of shitty.

I don't think that we
should have to, you know,

look back to that always in order
to make a claim that we belong,

because, ultimately, we're still
leaving other people out.

But isn't it "just" a musical?
How much does it matter?

Sure, it's just a musical,

but it's a musical about a very...

erm, intensely symbolic moment
in American history

that has an impact on how Americans
understand ourselves.

At the centre of the story
of Hamilton

is a line which becomes
the final song -

"Who lives, who dies,
who tells your story?"

# Who lives, who dies,
who tells your story?

# President Jefferson,
I give him this... #

This show is explicitly
asking questions

about who gets to write history.

# Who lives, who dies,
who tells your story? #

Who controls the narrative
of the founding era?

And in a story where some
of American history's

biggest fibs abound, this can
surely only be a good thing.

# Every other Founding Father's
story gets told

# Every other Founding Father
gets to grow old... #

The history of the American
Revolution has been mythologised,

distorted, reimagined

and sometimes just made up.

And that's partly because it's
such an inspiring moment in time.

America has such a powerful
national mythology.

It makes Americans feel good
about their country

and it's how their country
presents itself to the world.

But if history teaches us
anything at all,

it's that we have to ask questions.

Who is telling us the story?

How are they spinning it?

And could they be telling us fibs?

Next time, the American Civil War.

You are darling, darling!

Was Abraham Lincoln really
fighting to end slavery?

Lincoln always did what was in
the best interest of his race.

I'll uncover the fibs
in the story of a conflict