All language subtitles for Expedition.Files.S04E01.Mysteries.of.American.History.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

On this episode
of "Expedition Files."

In 1968, the USS Scorpion
disappears without a trace.

Accident or act of war?

Did a Soviet spy inside
the U.S. Navy help destroy it?

For six decades, the truth
has been submerged...

until now.

And Paul Revere famously saved
America on his Midnight Ride,

during the Revolutionary War.

But does he deserve
all the credit?

Remarkable research changes
everything we think we know

about the birth of our nation.

The British are coming!

Then, a shocking claim.

John Wilkes Booth,
the killer of Abraham Lincoln,

wasn't captured
and killed at all,

but instead lived on to meet
a far stranger end.

We dig into this
mind-blowing theory.

In the corridors of time...

Are mysteries
that defy explanation.

Now, I'm traveling
through history itself...

on a search for the truth.

New evidence.

Shocking answers.

I'm Josh Gates.

And these...

are my "Expedition Files."

There are many things
we know about America.

Truths held self-evident.

We have 50 states,
we love freedom,

we sing the national anthem off
key before every baseball game,

and our idea of a small soda

is still larger than any other
nation on Earth.

But tonight isn't about what
we know about America.

It's about what we don't.

So, prepare to look beneath
the stars and stripes

to uncover three
American mysteries.

We begin in Spain,
of all places.

It's May of 1968, and
the Cold War is running red hot,

as we dive into
the enigmatic fate of one

of America's most valuable
military assets.

We're on base
at Naval Station Rota,

and behind me
is the USS Scorpion,

a skipjack-class,
nuclear-powered submarine

about to depart for its home
in Norfolk, Virginia,

due to arrive
in two weeks' time.

But this sub and all 99 men
aboard will disappear.

No distress call, no survivors.

And what the Navy knows,
well, that's classified.

But then, more than 50 years
later, a whistleblower claiming

to have inside information will
come forward to disclose

something that, if true,
would be one of the most

well-kept secrets
of the Cold War.

Is the fate of the Scorpion
an accident or an attack?

Commissioned in 1960,
the USS Scorpion is one

of the Navy's most advanced
nuclear attack subs,

designed to be virtually
undetectable by the enemy.

Powered by a nuclear reactor,
it's built to run silently

and stay submerged for months.

At 252 feet long, about
the length of a city block,

it can reach
33 knots underwater,

nearly 40 miles an hour.

Armed with classified weapons,
including two nuclear warheads,

it's one of the deadliest
and most stealthy assets

in the U.S. Navy.

Here at the Submarine
Force Atlantic headquarters

in Norfolk, Virginia, radio men
like Mike Hannon

monitor the Scorpion
and every other U.S.

submarine operating
in the Atlantic.

While here, beneath the waves,
the Scorpion spends most

of her time training
to hunt Soviet subs.

But there's a problem.

The Scorpion isn't
exactly shipshape.

The sub has been racking up
maintenance headaches.

There's a hydraulic leak
they can't fix

and a persistently faulty
trash disposal unit.

The crew starts calling
it "Scrap Iron."

Despite this,
in February of 1968,

the submarine
gets cleared for duty

and begins patrols
of the Mediterranean.

For three months,
the Scorpion travels

throughout the Med,
it doesn't find any threats.

And on May 17th, its mission
is scheduled to come to an end.

Its last stop is the port
of Rota, Spain, before it turns

west into the Atlantic
and heads home.

On May 21st, the crew radios
in from roughly 250 miles

southwest of the Azores Islands
of Portugal.

They estimate they'll be back
in Norfolk in six days' time.

May 27th, 1968,

the USS Scorpion
is finally due home.

Families gather at the pier,
eager to welcome their loved

ones, but something is terribly
wrong, and Radioman Second

Class Mike Hannon suspects it.

It's Hannon's job to track
messages from the subs at sea.

The Scorpion hasn't sent one
in six days.

He's praying there's
some logical explanation,

but there's no sign
of the Scorpion.

The developing
story out of Norfolk...

By 6 PM, the evening
news is painting

an unsettling picture.

The nuclear
submarine USS Scorpion

was scheduled
to arrive in Norfolk

this morning, but Navy officials

say the vessel has yet
to make contact.

That's right.
Families worry as the status

of the crew of naval submarine
Scorpion remains unknown.

It's been almost a week since
the Navy has received

communication from the vessel.

The next day, word
spreads across the country.

A nuclear-powered
submarine is missing.

And with Soviet tensions
at an all-time high, the Navy

is looking to avoid a panic.

The government tries
to keep a lid on things,

quietly sending
search vessels out,

framed as routine operations.

But behind the scenes,
there's much more urgency

as the Atlantic Fleet
surges into action.

Dozens of ships
and aircraft search

for the missing submarine.

They scour the Scorpion's
projected path

from the Azores
all the way to Norfolk.

Weeks pass, and the Navy offers
no explanation to the families

who are desperate for answers.

But the operation presses on.

And then, five months in,
using cutting-edge sonar

and underwater camera systems,
the Navy pulls off

the seemingly impossible.

They find the Scorpion.

The wreck of the submarine sits
9,800 feet below the surface

of the Atlantic, approximately
400 miles southwest

of the Azores.

The submarine is badly damaged,
its hull shattered.

What could have caused
this catastrophe?

And was the Scorpion's
nickname of "Scrap Iron"

an omen of her destruction?

The Navy's official inquiry
is contentious,

with various theories
hotly debated.

Some experts blame structural
failure or a hydrogen explosion

during a battery charge.

Others believe one of the sub's
own torpedoes accidentally

detonated, imploding the ship.

The investigation suspected
some form of explosion,

but lacked the evidence
to prove its cause,

ultimately determining that
the reason the USS Scorpion

sunk, quote, "Cannot be
definitely ascertained."

For the next 50 years,
the loss of the Scorpion

will remain one of the Cold
War's biggest mysteries.

But now, former Navy radio
operator Mike Hannon has come

forward with a stunning claim,
that the Navy knew far more

than it ever told the public.

He believes the destruction
of the Scorpion and the deaths

of her crew was no accident.

At the time
the Scorpion was sunk,

I was a service clerk

responsible for all incoming
and outgoing messages.

One of those messages was
what's known in the Navy

as a "check report."

Check report is
a very simple message sent

encrypted by a submarine
when it is on patrol.

The Scorpion was
on a 24-hour check report

until we want to hear
from them every 24 hours.

The message simply would say,

"Check 24.
Submarine Scorpion."

So when no check report
arrived, Hannon knew something

was wrong, very wrong.

Any news on Scorpion?

When the daily
check reports stopped,

Navy command pulled data

from the U.S.
Sound Surveillance System,

a vast network
of underwater hydrophones

designed to detect
and track submarines across

the world's oceans.

Mike Hannon viewed
a visualization of that data

and believes he saw something
that changes everything.

They showed me the tape,
and you could clearly see

it squiggling up and down
the line.

And you could see, boom,
here, a couple seconds later,

boom, there.
Two distinct torpedo hits.

And the Scorpion was sunk.

After the two explosions,
they could determine

that a Russian submarine
in that immediate area

sped up, surfaced,

and left.

Hannon believes
the hydrophone recording

is a smoking gun,
proving the Scorpion was sunk

in a Soviet submarine attack.

But there is one big problem.

The tape Mike claims he saw
of the hydrophone recording,

in the 60 years since,

no one else has
ever reported seeing it.

And even if we do take Mike
at his word,

there's another question.

How were the Soviets able
to locate a stealth submarine?

Mike believes he has the answer.

His co-worker was a Russian spy.

A bombshell claim from former
Navy radioman Mike Hannon,

suggests the USS Scorpion
submarine wasn't lost

to an accident, but instead was
destroyed in a calculated

Soviet torpedo strike.

But if the Scorpion was

a virtually undetectable
stealth sub,

how could the Soviets
have found it?

The answer wouldn't surface
until nearly two decades later,

with revelations
about John Walker Jr.,

a chief warrant officer in the
Norfolk Communications Office,

alongside radioman Mike Hannon
when the Scorpion vanished.

In the 1980s, he was officially
outed as a spy and sentenced

to life in prison in one
of the most damaging security

breaches in naval history.
Walker had been passing

the U.S. Navy's most closely
guarded secrets to the Soviets,

including top secret
submarine patrol schedules.

If the Soviets had access to
the Scorpion's navigation plan,

they would have known exactly
where she was headed

and could have
been waiting to strike.

We had a row
of teletype machines

where messages were coming in.

And I had noticed that Walker
would go back there

and just go down the line,
looking at the messages

on each of the machines.

I said, "Why all of a sudden is
Walker interested in all

of these damn messages?"

I think
there's a good possibility

that Walker could
have been involved.

And there's no doubt in my mind
that a Soviet submarine

fired two torpedoes
and sank the Scorpion,

no doubt whatsoever.

And I will take those feelings
to my grave with me.

Soviet spy John Walker Jr.
died in prison in 2014

without ever being directly
linked to the fate

of the Scorpion.

Many experts are also skeptical
of Mike's theory,

noting that the wreck shows
no clear sign

of an external torpedo attack

and that the sub likely
imploded due to an unknown

catastrophic event, which means
that for Mike and the families

of those aboard, there's no
emotional closure to the case.

It was painful then
and for all the years since.

I knew 10 of those guys...

closely.

The scar that that's left on me,

seldom does a night go by

that I don't have that whole
situation go through my head

and wake-- wake me up.

If you had seen those families

on that pier,
their anticipation,

and their dads are coming home

or significant others
are coming home,

it-- it broke my heart.

I know that I've said
information that's still

top secret, but I'm not going to
die with the people of America

not knowing what happened
with that submarine

and its 99 dedicated sailors.

Over a decade ago,
a submarine veterans group

petitioned the government
to reopen the case to determine

the true cause
of the Scorpion's sinking.

So far, the Navy has declined.

Today, the USS Scorpion still
lies at a depth of nearly

10,000 feet on the floor
of the Atlantic Ocean,

as does her nuclear reactor.

The Navy monitors the area
for signs of radioactivity,

but the sub itself remains off
limits, a silent steel tomb

for 99 sailors who made

the ultimate sacrifice
for their country.

From a submarine lost at sea,

to the loss
of an American president.

It's April 26, 1865.

The Civil War is at an end,

and Abraham Lincoln
has just been murdered.

And inside this blazing barn
is the man who shot him.

Throw down
your arms and come out!

History records that in a few
minutes, gunfire will ring out,

and John Wilkes Booth will die.

But soon, a conspiracy theory
will emerge,

one of the strangest theories
you could possibly imagine,

that John Wilkes Booth
doesn't perish tonight,

that he escapes,
slips into a new identity,

only to end up as--

well, I don't want
to spoil it for you.

Just get ready for a wild ride
as we use high-tech analysis

to unravel
the mind-blowing mystery

surrounding America's
most infamous assassin.

Our strange story really begins
12 days before the barn.

After four long years
of bloodshed,

the Civil War is finally over.

President Abraham Lincoln
is taking a rare night out

to celebrate, enjoying the play
"Our American Cousin"

at Ford's Theater
in Washington, D.C.

But just as the performance
reaches its climax,

a single gunshot rings out.

Lincoln has been murdered
in cold blood.

The killer leaps from
Lincoln's box onto the stage.

He lands on both feet, hard.
His leg is now broken.

Sic semper tyrannis!

The South will be avenged!

Many in the audience wonder

if this is all part of the play.

That's because the man who just
jumped on stage is one

of the most famous actors
in America, John Wilkes Booth.

Before anyone can react,
he flees the stage.

He shot the president!

Stop that man!

Booth rides off
into the darkness and vanishes.

Sparking one of the most frantic
manhunts in American history.

According to some reports,
he alters his appearance,

shaving off his
trademark mustache

to avoid being recognized.

As word of Lincoln's
assassination spreads,

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
locks down Washington,

sealing bridges and dispatching
teams of soldiers,

detectives, and bounty hunters
to track Booth's escape.

A staggering $50,000 bounty,
over a million dollars today,

is placed on Booth's head.

After 12 days of desperate
searching, finally,

there's a break.

A tip leads Union soldiers
to a farm two miles

from Port Royal, Virginia.

Two men are said
to be hiding there,

one matching the description
of John Wilkes Booth.

The soldiers are under clear
orders to take Booth alive

so he can expose any possible
Confederate conspiracy.

So the soldiers set
the barn ablaze,

hoping to force Booth out.

Which brings us back here
to the besieged barn.

According to the account
of the Union soldiers,

they first demand the two men
inside surrender.

- Eventually, one man emerges.
- You, come out!

It's David Herold,
one of Booth's accomplices.

But the other man refuses
to come outside.

Sargent Boston Corbett
then confronts Booth

through the doors of the barn.

Come out, Booth!
You're surrounded!

Fearing the suspect
is about to fire,

he has no choice
but to bring him down.

The soldiers say
they drag him, barely alive,

onto the farmhouse porch.

In his pockets,
the soldiers find

Booth's diary.

Paralyzed from the gunshot,
he apparently

can't lift his arms.

With his final breath,
he stares down at his hands

and whispers two words.

Useless.

Dawn is breaking,
and John Wilkes Booth is dead.

After 12 days on the run,

the man who killed Abraham
Lincoln has met his end.

In the aftermath of Booth's
death, the body is brought

aboard the Union ironclad ship,
the USS Montauk,

where a surgeon
performs an autopsy.

Fearing his remains might be
stolen or desecrated,

Booth's body is then placed
at a D.C. penitentiary

before ultimately
being interred in a family plot

at Greenmount Cemetery
in Baltimore.

Meanwhile, four people,
including David Herold

from the barn fire, are found
guilty of conspiracy

to assassinate Lincoln

and are hanged
on July 7th, 1865.

It would seem this tragic case
has come to a close,

but there are those that believe
there's much more to the story.

Enter Texas attorney Finis
Bates, who publishes a book

in 1907 called
"The Escape and Suicide

of John Wilkes Booth."

In its pages Bates recounts
the purportedly true

jaw-dropping story

of a man he befriended
named John St. Helen.

In 1878, St. Helen falls
gravely ill.

And, believing
he's about to die,

makes an outrageous confession.

Our name is not John St. Helen.

My real name is
John Wilkes Booth.

He says he is
the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

According to Bates' tell-all
book, John Wilkes Booth

didn't die in that barn at all.

He escaped justice and spent
the rest of his life hiding

behind a false identity.

Now, that might sound like
a crazy claim, but I promise

we're just getting warmed up,
because John Wilkes Booth

then allegedly becomes an actual
mummy in a traveling sideshow.

Seriously.

In 1878,
a man on his deathbed,

named John St. Helen
confesses an astonishing secret.

He claims to be
Abraham Lincoln's killer,

John Wilkes Booth,
and says he faked his death,

escaping capture.

The man explains that,
after assassinating Lincoln,

he escaped through
Southern Maryland,

hidden in the back of a wagon,

and slipped back into Virginia.

However, at one point,
in order to avoid capture,

St. Helen abandoned the wagon
and fled into the woods.

But, in doing so,
he lost his diary.

St. Helen says
he sent a messenger,

a Confederate soldier
known only as Ruddy,

back for the diary.

Ruddy collected it,
but then panicked upon seeing

the Union troops and fled
to a nearby barn,

where he apparently
ended up alongside

fellow Confederate conspirator
David Herold.

St. Helen says it was
his messenger who was shot

and killed in the barn
that night.

But, because the man resembled
him and carried his diary,

it led Union troops
to mistakenly identify

the messenger as Booth.

St. Helen said in the years
that followed,

he assumed various aliases,
constantly on the move

to avoid capture.

I need to show you something.

After telling
this extraordinary tale

to Finis Bates, St. Helen
presents an original photograph

of John Wilkes Booth as proof,

implying that only
the real Booth

would possess such a picture.

But that's far from the end
of this twisted tale.

Following his dramatic
deathbed confession that

he is John Wilkes Booth,
St. Helen recovers

and promptly disappears.

Bates keeps the photograph,

but it would be
another 25 years,

in 1903, before he sees
St. Helen again,

only this time, the man
is definitely dead.

Bates says he came across
a newspaper article

from Enid, Oklahoma, describing
how a local mortuary

had the preserved body
of a drifter.

The newspaper also reported
the deceased man had been

living under the name
David E. George,

but before he died,
claimed to be John Wilkes Booth.

One look at the photo
of David E. George

and Bates was certain it
was the same man he'd met

years earlier in Texas,
John St. Helen.

A few years later,
Bates actually buys the corpse,

just as he's preparing
to publish a book,

detailing the wild tale of
Booth's escape and secret life.

With the mummified body
in tow and a sensational story

to promote, Bates is ready
to take his show on the road.

For the next 70 years,
the so-called Booth Mummy

takes to the stage, touring
America with multiple circus

productions, often with
the less than subtle billing,

"See the Man
Who Murdered Lincoln."

The attraction even makes it
to the World's Fair.

The mummy is a hit,
but is there any shred of truth

to its origin?

Author Jane Singer has studied
the legend closely.

What's remarkable to me is how
many people genuinely believed

that John Wilkes Booth
did not die in that barn.

Was there a government
conspiracy to suppress

the fact that Booth really
didn't die on April 26, 1865?

A lot of people believed
there was.

Enough people probably believed
and were suspicious

of the government because
toward the end of the Civil War,

before Abraham Lincoln
was killed,

it was a very
hard-handed regime.

In order to win this war,
Abraham Lincoln first had

to suspend the right
of habeas corpus.

Can't have a trial.
If you're a traitor,

you get hauled off to jail.

And then we have
General William Tecumseh Sherman

marching from Memphis
to the sea and literally

destroying much
of the Confederacy.

And so, to believe that that
government was not trustworthy,

I don't think was such a far
reach for a lot of people.

And let's be real, it
would have been a terrible look

for the Union if Lincoln's
killer had just slipped away.

But Singer isn't
buying the conspiracy.

Why? Because the soldiers at
Garrett Farms swore up and down

they knew exactly who they had.

And other experts
also corroborated

it was John Wilkes Booth.

When we are looking
at Finis Bates' theory,

that John Wilkes Booth escaped

not just the burning barn,
but death,

it doesn't add up,
because there were credible

witnesses called to come
to the Montauk

and identify the body.

Dr. John Frederick May was
a renowned Washington, D.C.

physician who had removed
a fibroid tumor from Booth's

neck about three months before
the assassination, and it left

quite a vivid scar.

And May allegedly said,
"That's the scar.

That's the person
I operated on."

Unmistakable, in his opinion.

Charles Dawson, who was a clerk
at the National Hotel

where Booth stayed,
when he first saw the body

of John Wilkes Booth,
he said, "Oh my goodness,

"on the right hand between

"the thumb and finger was
a tattoo with the initials JWB

tattooed in India ink."
And young Dawson said,

"That's the tattoo I repeatedly

when Booth signed
the guest register."

These were ordinary folks.

It would be highly unlikely
that the official autopsy

of record would be part of
some overreaching conspiracy.

And what of John St. Helen,
the mummified man who insisted

he was the real Booth?

A forensic team recently used
facial recognition technology

to render a definitive answer
to his conspiratorial claim.

In 2020,
the Smithsonian Institution

created a Civil War sleuth
facial recognition software.

They compared the face
of John Wilkes Booth to the face

of John St. Helen's.

During the testing
of the photographs,

there were data points
that weren't matching.

It was clear that John
Wilkes Booth in photograph,

John St. Helen in photograph,

couldn't possibly be
the same person.

So after 147 years,
we can finally scientifically

declare that John St. Helen
is not John Wilkes Booth.

More than likely, Finis Bates
spun the fanciful tale

for pure profit, using the story
and the mummy

to promote book sales.

But conspiracies
don't die quietly.

As recently as 2010,
Booth's descendants lobbied

to have his remains exhumed
and his DNA tested.

The request was denied.

Regardless, I think it's safe
to say if you happen to pass

a carnival with a sign hawking
a John Wilkes Booth mummy,

that's one sideshow you can
happily avoid.

I'm at a pub
in Boston, Massachusetts,

on April 18, 1775.

And even though the beer
is flowing, the mood is

anything but celebratory.

These colonists, still
technically British citizens,

have been under
the thumb of the crown

for years, and they have
reached their breaking point.

A revolution is brewing.

And militia commander
Joseph Warren here

has received word that
the British are planning

to strike back tomorrow morning.

They need to take action now.

And what happens next will
become the stuff of legend,

because the commander
dispatches this man,

Paul Revere, to set out
on a dangerous mission.

The story goes that,
after leaving the tavern,

Revere spots two lanterns
hanging in a church,

signaling the British
are attacking by sea.

And so he begins
his famous Midnight Ride.

His words echoing
through history.

The British are coming!

British are coming!

The British are coming!

Revere's heroic ride will be
remembered as saving America,

one man alone protecting
the birth of a new nation.

But 250 years later,
evidence will reveal

that almost everything we think
we know about Paul Revere's

fateful night is in need
of a rewrite.

In 1775, the year
of his famed ride, Paul Revere

is a silversmith
living in Boston,

struggling to make ends meet.

Britain has imposed taxes
on the colonies,

causing a recession,
and spawning

the "Taxation Without
Representation" movement.

The most onerous tax is known
as the Stamp Act,

requiring the colonies
to purchase special paper

for all printed materials.

The tax's true purpose is
to raise money for the occupying

British troops,
essentially picking

the colonists' pockets to pay
for their very own oppressors.

In response, some colonists,
including Revere,

form a clandestine militia
known as the "Sons of Liberty"

to battle the British.

One of their most
successful protests

is the Boston Tea Party,

where they sneak onto
British ships and dump

all their highly profitable
tea leaves into the harbor.

No better way to rile up a Brit
than to mess with their tea.

But the Boston Tea Party
is only the beginning.

What follows will ignite
a revolution and bring

Paul Revere and what he did,

or notably didn't do,
into the spotlight.

It's 1775, a year and a half
since the Boston Tea Party,

and the American resistance
to British rule

is gaining momentum.

Intelligence gathered
by the colonial rebel group

known as the "Sons of Liberty"

reveals that the British
have 700 soldiers

at the ready
for a raid on the colonists.

In anticipation,
the militia has been assembling

stockpiles of weapons,
gunpowder and supplies.

One of the largest is
in Concord, a small town

on the outskirts of Boston.

The colonists know
it's only a matter of time

before the Redcoats
make their attack,

so they activate
an early warning system.

If the colonists spot any
aggressive movement of British

troops, a man will
light a signal

in the North Church's
bell tower.

If the British are marching out
of Boston over land,

he'll light a single lantern.

If, instead, the British cross

the Charles River by boat,
he will light two.

Or, as you might remember it
from your childhood,

"One if by land, two if by sea."

On April 18th, the colonists'
fears are realized.

A spy spots British troops
crossing the Charles River.

Two lanterns it is.

Now, unless you took
honors American history

in high school, here's
the version of Revere's story

you likely remember.

Revere sees the lanterns,

and so begins his ride
to spread the alarm.

Hyah!

Alone, galloping
from town to town,

Revere reportedly shouts
that famous phrase,

The British are coming!
The British are coming!

The British are coming!

After an hour, it's said
that he makes it to Lexington,

and after another,
he supposedly makes it

to his destination,
Concord, around 2 AM.

Revere has reportedly
arrived just in time,

single-handedly giving
the rebel militia time to arm

themselves and muster
into formations.

Just three hours later,
those 700 British soldiers

will march into Lexington,

confronting
the colonial militia.

Gunshots ring out,
and with that,

the American Revolution
officially begins.

If it wasn't
for Revere's warning,

it all could have gone
very differently.

We all remember this story,
but it may surprise you

to learn that, for most of us,
what we know comes

from a single source,
the 1861 poem titled

"Paul Revere's Ride,"

written an astonishing
86 years after the event

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

"In the hour of darkness
and peril and need,

"the people will waken
and listen to hear

"the hurrying hoofbeats
of that steed

and the midnight message
of Paul Revere."

It's 14 stirring stanzas,

really selling
Revere's solo glory.

Oh, but there is one small
problem with the poem,

it's wrong.

It was written to be rousing,
not historical.

Historian Sami
Jarroush explains.

Longfellow's poem is...

a lovely poem.

It tells a heroic story

of someone who rose
above the odds

and-- and proclaimed
resistance out loud.

But we have had to uncover
numerous primary sources

to truly piece together
what took place during

the actual Midnight Ride.

That includes Paul Revere's
diaries, Paul Revere's letters

that he had sent, uh,
with his own description

of the Midnight Ride.

In 1942, historian Esther
Forbes dives into those primary

sources and publishes a new
biography of Revere.

And some serious cracks emerge

in Longfellow's version
of Revere's story.

The first issue is here

at the very beginning
of our story.

Esther Forbes discovers
a paper trail confirming

Commander Warren dispatches
not just Paul Revere,

but fellow militiaman
William Dawes.

Warren wants two men
on separate routes

so that if one is captured,

the other can still
complete the mission.

Because as leaders of the Sons
of Liberty, the fear was

that they would be forced
to give up all this information

and it would be a lot harder
to take on the British Army

because all of the secrets
would have been given up.

Forbes' biography wins
the Pulitzer Prize.

But to the general public,
the story of Revere's ride

continues to be
shrouded in myth.

And it turns out the full true
story isn't just that Revere

didn't ride alone.

- Buckle up,
because what comes...
- The British are coming!

...next will upend
the most famous

parts of Revere's
legendary story.

Paul Revere isn't the only
Revolutionary War hero

to take a legendary ride.

In 1777, as British soldiers
burned Danbury, Connecticut,

16-year-old Sybil Ludington,
the daughter

of a local militia commander,
reportedly rode alone

through 40 miles
of stormy woods.

It's said that she
warned neighbors,

evaded British patrols,

and by dawn
had mobilized 400 men.

But her ride,
twice the distance

of Paul Revere's,
went unrecognized at the time.

The first written account of it
surfaced in 1880,

with a statue
then erected in her honor

and markers placed
along her reported route.

Today, some scholars question
whether the ride really was

as epic as recorded, but
her inspiring story persists,

a teenage girl
braving the night to help

save a fledgling nation.

Ride on, Sybil.

Paul Revere's renowned solo
ride is not as we remember it.

In Longfellow's immortal poem,
a pair of lanterns was hung

in the Old North Church
and lit to indicate

where the British
were coming from.

One if by land,
and two if by sea.

Once Revere sees the signal,
he begins his ride.

Well, it turns out Revere
didn't start his ride

because he saw the lanterns.

He started because he'd been
ordered to by Joseph Warren

back in the tavern.

The signal in the church
wasn't for Revere.

It was for the rest
of the community.

Revere didn't need a signal.

He already had his
mission from Warren.

He already knew where he had
to ride to, where he had to go.

In reality, Revere came up
with the signal idea.

He went to the sexton
of the church, and he said,

"Here's what you're gonna do.

"If the British
are coming by land,

"put one lantern in the belfry.

If they're coming
by water, put two."

So the signal was

more for other people to be
aware of where the British

would be coming from.

And there's more
myth-busting to come.

Remember the most legendary
moment of the ride?

Revere's dramatic cry,
"The British are coming!"

Well, it turns out
he probably never said it,

at least not like that.

The British are coming!

"The British are coming!
The British are coming!"

It never happened.

If you're riding past midnight
and you're yelling out loud

that the British are coming,
you're waking everybody up.

Not a good move
if you're trying to stay

as discreet as possible.

What Revere actually ends up
doing on his Midnight Ride

is he rides to people's homes

and he knocks on their doors
and lets them know,

"Hey-- "

The Regulars are coming out.

"The Regulars are coming out".

What the regulars refers to
is the British Regular Army,

a.k.a. British soldiers.

So where did the famous phrase,

"The British are coming,"
originate?

It's not from the Longfellow
poem that's the source

of other errors.

It's actually from an 1879
school textbook

that misattributes the phrase
to Revere.

When you read history
and when you study history,

we're only understanding history
from a certain point of view.

There's no
all-encompassing source.

You have to think
about what's missing.

To put the final nail
in poor old Longfellow's poem,

historians point out
one more major flaw.

Revere never actually
made it to Concord.

The poem gets
that part wrong, too.

It was another rider who reached
the final destination.

Digging into the historical
record, it's clear Revere

and Dawes actually met a third
rider at John Hancock's house

in Lexington.

That's right, it wasn't one
rider who saved America or two,

but three.

The third rider is a doctor
named Samuel Prescott.

Together, the three men set out
from Lexington to Concord

to warn of the oncoming British.

But halfway there,
the trio is spotted

by a patrol of British soldiers.

Prescott leaps
to safety and rides on.

Dawes escapes the Redcoats,
but is thrown from

his horse and injured.

And Revere, far from
triumphantly making it

to Concord, he's actually
captured by the British.

The British patrol
that captures Revere,

press him for information.

But Revere stands his ground.

Doesn't give them
any information.

What he tells them,
though, is that...

"eh, you're about
to be surrounded

"by a bunch of Americans

who are ready to take up
arms against you."

The British don't initially
believe Revere, so they keep

him captured, but they run
into other British soldiers

who basically confirm
what Revere has told them.

And so they recognize
that that's the bigger threat

that they have to deal with
and not on this one guy.

So they end up
letting Revere go.

Revere ends up riding back...

...to Lexington
and helping John Hancock

and his family escape.

So ends the true saga
of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride.

It turns out he didn't ride
alone, he was never warned

by lamps, he never reached
Concord, and probably

never shouted,
"The British are coming."

But whatever license
Longfellow's poem may have

taken, Paul Revere
was every bit a hero.

He was part of a trio of daring
riders who, along with tens

of thousands
of brave militiamen,

battled against oppression
to forge these United States.

I'm Josh Gates, and I'll see you
on the next expedition.