Most Americans can tell you about Saratoga. Many know the story of Yorktown. Far fewer remember that before the Declaration of Independence was even signed, the Continental Army launched an ambitious invasion of Canada in hopes of making it the fourteenth colony.

In this episode of Liberty 250, Dave Does History on Bill Mick Live, we travel to the often-forgotten Battle of Trois-Rivières, fought on June 8, 1776. It was a battle born from bad intelligence, overconfidence, and desperation. American commanders believed they were attacking a weak British outpost. Instead, they marched through swamps and confusion only to discover a prepared British force supported by Royal Navy gunfire.

Along the way, we meet some of the most fascinating figures of the Revolutionary War's northern campaign, including Governor Guy Carleton, General William Thompson, Anthony Wayne, Simon Fraser, Baron Riedesel, and the mysterious local guide Antoine Gautier, whose role in the American defeat remains debated nearly 250 years later.

We will explore how the American invasion of Canada collapsed, why the Battle of Trois-Rivières effectively ended the Canada Campaign of 1775-1776, and how a forgotten debt owed to the Ursuline Convent of Trois-Rivières remained unpaid for more than two centuries.

Join us as we uncover one of the most overlooked chapters of the American Revolution, a story of ambition, miscalculation, and a battlefield that changed the future of North America.

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As Americans, we celebrate July 4, 1776, as Independence Day. We gather for fireworks, parades, and patriotic ceremonies, honoring the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Yet many historians point to another date as the true moment the United States was born: July 2, 1776.

In this episode of Liberty 250, we explore one of the most dramatic and overlooked stories of the American Revolution, the legendary ride of Caesar Rodney. As the Second Continental Congress debated Richard Henry Lee's Resolution for Independence, the vote hung in the balance. Pennsylvania was divided. South Carolina hesitated. New York abstained. Delaware stood deadlocked.

Only one man could break that tie.

Eighty miles away in Dover, Delaware, Caesar Rodney mounted his horse and rode through a violent summer storm toward Philadelphia. Suffering from illness and exhaustion, he pressed forward through mud, darkness, thunder, and rain to reach Independence Hall before the decisive vote.

His arrival on July 2, 1776 helped secure Delaware's support for independence and paved the way for the unanimous approval of the Lee Resolution, the legal act that severed the American colonies from Great Britain.

Join us as we examine the events leading to American independence, the debates of the Continental Congress, the role of John Adams, John Dickinson, Richard Henry Lee, and Caesar Rodney, and why one remarkable overnight ride helped change the course of history. This is the story behind the Delaware Quarter, the birth of the United States, and the forgotten day that John Adams believed would be celebrated forever.

The old pine tree flag has suddenly become controversial again, which tells us less about the American Revolution than it does about how badly modern Americans have forgotten their own history. In this episode, we trace the true origins of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, from the towering white pines of colonial New England to the decks of George Washington’s improvised navy during the first desperate months of the Revolution.

Along the way, we uncover the deeper meaning behind the flag’s famous motto, borrowed directly from John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. “An Appeal to Heaven” was never a slogan of casual rebellion. It was a grave philosophical declaration that a people had exhausted every earthly avenue for justice and believed they now answered directly to a higher moral law.

We also explore how the pine tree itself became a symbol of resistance after the British Crown attempted to seize New England’s forests for the Royal Navy, sparking riots, resentment, and eventually revolution. Most importantly, we examine how historical symbols are redefined in modern political battles by people who often know very little about the actual history behind them.

Because once a nation forgets the meaning of its own symbols, it becomes dangerously easy for someone else to redefine them.