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Investigations
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REVOLUTION 1754 - 1820

These stories relate to the era which ocurred during the American Revolution, roughly between 1754 and the 1820s. The era is defined by the ideas and interests involved in forging the revolutionary movement, the reasons for the American victory, and the impact of the American Revolution on politics, economy, and society. The institutions and practices of government created during the Revolution and how they were revised between 1787 and 1815 created the foundation of the American political system based on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Click on the links below to go to a particular investigation or go back to the Archive.

Cherokee Bible
A Texan of Cherokee descent inherits a mysterious bible from her father...More

Continental Currency
Could this $6 bill represent America’s first declaration of its independence?...More

Flint Lock Rifle
Mercer County Historical Society has in its possession a late 18th century flint-lock rifle, which, according to local lore, once belonged to legendary Tory bandit Moses Doan, and was recovered after he was killed in a raid of his hideout in 1783....More

George Washington Portrait
Could a portrait passed down through a Frederick, Maryland family actually be an authentic portrait of the nation's first president, George Washington?...More

Highlander Badge
Could an amateur treasure diver really have turned up a possible Revolutionary War artifact? ...More

Independence Trumpet
Is a Pennsylvania man's trumpet, which he bought at a local auction, somehow tied to the Revolutionary War?...More

Lafayette China
Hearts and arrows blaze across an unusual set of china at the Powel House in Philadelphia...More

Muhlenberg Robe
Was this robe torn off during a fiery sermon to rally congregants to the cause of the Revolutionary War? ...More

Philadelphia Freedom Paper
A Bronx, New York man with a longtime interest in African-American history recently purchased an intriguing document at a flea market that he believes to be a “freedom paper” for an African-American man named John Jubilee Jackson...More

Pirate Spyglass
Jean Lafitte was a fearsome pirate, an ingenious privateer, and a war hero. ...More

Rebel Whiskey Flask
It’s the Fall of 1794, and trouble is brewing in western Pennsylvania. Thousands of protestors are daring to fight back against the newly established U.S. government, protesting a tax on whiskey...More

Revolutionary War Cannon
A Boston woman is fascinated by an old cannon, kept in a local national park storage facility....More

Revolutionary War Poem
The History Detectives arrive in Salem, Oregon to look into the story of a Revolutionary War poem found 25 years ago hiding in an antique trunk....More

United Empire Loyalist
A Californian college dean comes across a family tree, begun by a deceased aunt, which contains the words "United Empire Loyalist" scribbled alongside several names....More