Original subtitles

History, that immortal chain of events

that links the present to the past.

Ooh, are you talking about history?

I love history!

What was that?

Is someone talking during my intro?

Hello? Ugh, maybe I'm hearing things.

Where was I? Ah, yes.

Put down your smartphones

and let me, your trusty uncorrectable narrator

guide you through my animated chronicle

of fascinating historical facts.

Let us begin with the founding of our nation,

The American Revolution.

It's the story of honest, faithful George Washington,

who led his band of patriots to victory.

Come, patriots! Fight for liberty!

- For freedom! - For liberty!

And 'cause we hate tea for some reason!

Actually...

Patriots like Paul Revere,

whose midnight ride saved Boston.

The British are coming, the British are coming!

- Uh, that's not... - The British are coming!

And the brave soldiers of the continental army,

who, united by a desire to be free, overcame tyranny.

Actually, everything you just said is wrong.

That's it! Who do you think you are

interrupting my show?

Hi, I'm Adam!

- Adam? - Who in the...

Ah, you must be one of the Frenchmen.

You don't come in until later.

I'm not French.

You're gonna tell me you're not French

with hair and clothes like that?

Nope, not French, but destroying misconceptions

is my raison d'�tre.

Many of the stories we know about the Revolution

aren't really history. They're myths.

So I'm here to set the record straight.

Stop dog-earing the page, you jerk!

You're ruining it!

Sorry, ruining is kinda my thing.

I'm Adam Conover and this is "Reanimated History."

??

*ADAM RUINS EVERYTHING* Season 02 Episode 17 Title: "American Revolution"

The American Revolution.

Those fateful years when General George Washington

inspired a group of patriots, bound by their love of freedom,

to form the mighty continental army.

- Three cheers for liberty, freedom, - Three cheers for liberty, freedom,

- and our beloved General Washington! - And our beloved General Washington!

Oh, that's a nice story.

But the truth is, the Continental Army

wasn't made up of patriots.

It was mostly drunks, immigrants and poor farmers

looking to get paid.

Ugh, The Frenchman again!

Where are you?

I'm the horse now. Isn't animation fun?

Ahh!

Down, down!

Okay, just ask nicely.

What are you talking about?

The Continental Army formed

due to a groundswell of patriotic pride!

Not in the slightest.

In fact, in 1775, as few as one in five colonists

even supported the Independence movement,

and much of that support

came from wealthy land-owning elites.

It'd be great for me if we were our own country.

The king's taxes are really hurting my bottom line.

But the average colonist didn't care about patriotism at all.

I've got a farm to tend.

I don't care which elitist wig-head is in charge!

___

Beer hats! We should make 'em.

And on top of that, about a third of the colonists

actually supported the British side.

I rather like being British.

Have you tried our tea? It's divine.

What? But I thought these people

had so much of that patriotic spirit!

No, they didn't.

Even Washington himself said...

Without the support of the people,

Washington and the Continental Congress

were desperate for an army.

So they resorted to shady recruitment practices

to raise their ranks.

Let's go trick some rubes into fighting against their will!

Ya-haw!

Ahh! Maybe we should have a safe word.

How about "bibliography"?

Hyah! Ahh!

Come on, how shady could they possibly have been?

First, they offered money to bribe potential recruits.

I know you don't want to fight,

but maybe my friend Mr. Washington

can change your mind?

Who the hell's Mr. Washington?

I am.

I'll be on the money, eventually.

It's a bribe, I'm bribing you.

Bribe? Why didn't you say so?

Give me a gun, I'll shoot those red jackets.

But the Continental Army didn't actually have

enough money to pay the soldiers,

so most received IOUs.

Here you are, you can cash it in

at the end of the war, if we win.

And if you don't lose that. And if you survive!

What?

Nothing!

Don't worry, it'll be fine.

Next, they'd walk into bars beating a drum

and literally march people into the army while they were drunk.

Join the army! Join the army!

Join the army! Join the army!

Let's follow that drummer boy!

He's leading us to Christmas.

Join the army!

- Join the army! - Join the army!

Hey, thanks, Santa Claus.

They would even trick immigrants with limited English

into signing enlistment contracts they couldn't read.

Here, sign this. It's, uh, the check.

___

Ha ha, you idiot!

You just agreed to be in the army!

Oh, I got you good!

But the dirtiest trick of all

is when they would frame colonists for crimes

and have courts punish them with forced enlistment.

That man stole my baby!

The punishment for baby-snatching is...

permanent enlistment!

And that baby isn't old enough to be in this bar.

Enlistment!

Junior!

Okay, so some underhanded tactics

were used to fill out the ranks,

but the rest of the army were brave volunteers.

Please tell me they were.

Sorry. Even with all that chicanery,

Washington still didn't have enough men,

so the colonies had to resort to something very unpopular.

Still not enough men.

We need... a draft.

One draft, coming up.

No, not a draft beer!

Mandatory conscription.

And also, wasting beer is a crime,

you have to join the army.

A draft? Like in Vietnam?

No!

I'm afraid so. And what's even worse

is that the wealthy elites who the war benefitted the most

were able to avoid the draft by paying poor people

to take their place.

I'd fight, but I don't want my wig to get dirty.

Make me proud.

Oh, wow, my life in exchange for money.

Seems fair.

All right, let's get you on the front lines.

I can't believe this.

You're telling me Washington's army

was made up of people who were drafted, tricked or paid off?

Yep, and as a result,

desertion was a constant problem.

As many as 20% of all the soldiers

in the Continental Army ended up deserting.

All right, let's slam some red coats!

Who's with me?

___

So Washington decided to enforce a statute that said...

"Any soldier who abandons his post

will receive little mercy and suffer death immediately."

No, Washington would never threaten to kill his own men!

That's blasphemy!

Oh, he didn't just threaten.

Some soldiers were so upset

about the poor conditions and lack of pay

that they coordinated full-blown mutinies.

In one case, 200 continental soldiers mutinied,

but they were soon captured.

We must make an example of these traitors.

Put them in front of a firing squad

and make their own friends pull the trigger.

Assemble all the regiments to bear witness,

so that every soldier may know the price

that is paid for treachery!

That didn't really happen.

I cannot tell a lie. It did.

Support for the war effort was so minimal,

that Washington resorted to killing his own men

just to keep his army of bribed, drunk, confused,

and impoverished colonists together to fight

for a cause they had no interest in defending.

Economic freedom for wealthy elites.

That's terrible.

Were there no patriots at all?

No, of course there were.

Have you ever heard of the enslaved man

who became a spy and turned the tide of the war?

No, I have not.

Where have you been? Are you deserting, too?

Bad horse!

I'll tell you in a sec. Ahh!

Bibliography! Bibliography!

You've heard about

George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.

But there's one revolutionary hero

we never talk about, even though we should.

Oh, now the hairdo's got some great history story, huh?

Well, if you think you can be a narrator,

go ahead and give it a try. Wow me.

Oh, okay.

Allow me to tell you the tale of the slave who became a spy

and helped to secure the patriot victory.

Okay, that's actually a pretty good start.

Thank you. His name was James

and he's an unsung badass of history.

The year is 1781.

General Washington and Commander Marquis de Lafayette of France

are in the dark about the British army's plans.

If we don't figure out

what those redcoats are up to in Virginia,

we are finished!

What are they doing?

Je ne sais pas, Monsieur.

They are British, so maybe breeding Corgis?

Meanwhile in Virginia,

an enslaved man named James

did not like his home state being invaded.

Virginia sucks!

That's it!

I'm joining the army and beating some British butt.

James wished to join the Continental Army,

which was rare, because while the British

actively recruited slaves to fight...

Hear ye, hear ye!

All who fight for the crown shall be free!

The patriots didn't even allow it at first,

and when they finally did,

they made no promises of freedom.

Hear ye, hear ye! All who fight for liberty

shall still be slaves! Sucks for you.

Due to this, there were up to 20 times more slaves

fighting for the British than on the Patriot side.

Huh... well, sucks for us.

But despite this, James joined the Patriots

to serve under Marquis de Lafayette.

Take that, General Cornwallace!

I throw darts in your face!

You filthy British stinkfoot!

Uh, sir?

I want to help the cause.

Sacre bleu.

A slave fighting for us?

I can read and write, too.

You are what we call in France, "le unicorn."

You could spy on the British

and no one would suspect a thing.

Here, take this coat to save the ruse.

Thank you, sir.

Take that, Lafayette, you pillock.

I have assaulted your face with darts.

British General, sir?

I am loyal to the crown and wish to fight for the king.

Notice my red coat.

Egads!

A runaway slave loyal to the crown.

You are what we call in Britain,

a regular occurrence. You'll fit right in.

Now, it's time to look at my battle plans.

Psst! General!

You sure you want to leave those battle plans out around him?

Him? He's a slave!

It's not like he can read and write!

So, I read and wrote down their entire battle plan.

Cornwallace is in Yorktown?

This will win us the war!

With this information, General Washington was able

to ambush Cornwallace's army at Yorktown,

forcing him to surrender.

Someone must have told them my battle plan!

But who could it be?

James, any ideas?

Uh...

Oh, well, I'm stumped.

Time to go surrender.

This became the last major battle

in the Revolutionary War, paving the way

for the founding of America.

James, your intelligence helped us win the war.

You are what we call in France, "le hero."

But, despite his massive contributions

to the war effort, James returned home

still a slave.

This new country feels a lot like the old country.

Virginia is awesome!

James petitioned the government

for his freedom for years to no avail.

But that changed when a national hero

spoke up on his behalf.

Marquis de Lafayette.

You're free, James.

What would you like your new last name to be?

Call me Lafayette. James Lafayette.

James Lafayette lived out the rest of his life a free man

in the country he helped to free from British rule.

And that's why he's an unsung badass of history.

Okay, I must begrudgingly admit, that was decent narrator work.

But I know a story about a patriot

that I'm gonna narrate the heck out of,

and it's about a man named Paul Revere.

No, wait!

That Paul Revere story is all wrong.

What's that? I can't hear you.

Wait!

Now the blond man has gone,

allow me to regale you with a story

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

It was April 18th, 1775.

Paul was set to warn the militiamen

of Lexington and Concord of an impending British attack.

But first, he needed to know,

will they come by land or by sea?

That's the signal!

One if by land, two if by sea!

Away to Lexington and Concord! Hyah!

The British are coming! The British are coming!

Revere rode through the night,

rallying militia with his cries.

Dozens of patriot lives were saved,

and it was all thanks to one man, Paul Revere.

What a stirring tale!

Stirringly inaccurate.

Ugh! Okay! Where are you this time?

Are you the horse again?

Nuh-uh, up here!

First of all, Revere never said "The British are coming."

At this point, many people in the colonies were British,

so that would have been really confusing.

The British are coming! The British are coming!

I'm British and so are you.

Are you saying we're coming or you're coming?

Stop yelling in the third person and go to sleep.

They actually called the British army "The Regulars."

Oh, I meant to say, the Regulars are coming!

Regulars?

Why didn't you say so? Bang bang!

Second, Revere didn't ride around the streets yelling.

That would have gotten him captured.

This was more of a well-planned intelligence mission.

The Regulars are com...

Oh, sorry. The Regulars are coming.

Thank you. No need to yell.

But most importantly,

Paul Revere never even completed his midnight ride.

What?

Remember those famous signal lanterns from the beginning?

Revere didn't even see them.

They were actually for a different Son of Liberty

named Dr. Joseph Warren, and for the historic ride,

he decided to send...

William Dawes!

Huh?

Who on earth is William Dawes?

He was another Son of Liberty

and the first man to be sent on the midnight ride.

Revere didn't set out until later,

and they wound up warning the militia

of Lexington together.

The regulars are coming, the regulars are coming!

Then, after leaving Lexington,

they were both detained by British soldiers.

And surrounding jail.

Another rider named Samuel Prescott

ended up warning Concord.

In fact, by then, lots of other riders

had already been dispatched to warn the local militias.

But... but if all those riders were warning the towns,

that would mean Revere's midnight ride

wasn't special at all.

Exactly.

In fact, in the years that followed,

most people forgot about Revere's midnight ride entirely.

It wasn't even mentioned in his obituary.

Okay, smart guy. If that's true,

then where did my story come from, hmm?

Simple. It came from a poem

written almost a century after the fact.

In 1860, Harvard professor

and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

wanted to unify a divided nation.

The Civil War is upon us.

There's only one thing that can save the nation now.

Me writing a poem!

He dug up the obscure and little-known story

of the midnight ride and penned a poem

that exaggerated the details to make it more inspiring.

I'll just add a few accomplishments here,

remove a character or two,

change name for rhyming purposes, and boom!

"Paul Revere's Ride"!

The poem caught on like wildfire

and today, it's one of the most beloved stories

of the American Revolution,

even though it's not actually true.

So, I guess Paul Revere wasn't important at all.

Aww...

Oh, no. Revere was super important.

Yes! Ha ha!

He printed the nation's first currency,

manufactured gunpowder for the army

and opened the country's first copper rolling mill,

and those things helped the cause

way more than his one failed ride.

But that's not common knowledge,

'cause no one wrote a poem about them.

Aww...

I feel like everything I knew

about the Revolution is completely wrong.

And it doesn't end there.

Like, did you know Betsy Ross

didn't sew the first American flag?

Her name wasn't even Betsy Ross!

Enough!

I don't want to hear anymore.

I liked knowing what I knew when I thought I knew it,

but apparently, every story we tell

about the Revolution is useless.

No, they're not useless, they're just not history.

And I'll tell you what I mean by that...

I just need a minute

Gather around Children. As I'll tell tou the story

of George Washington, a wealthy elitist and murderer

who led a group of drunks into battle against their will

to fight for a cause they couldn't care less about.

Also, Paul Revere wasn't there, because apparently, he sucks.

Oh, nuts.

Okay, you're exaggerating a little bit.

No, I'm not.

I'm telling the real horrible stories of America's founding,

because you took away all my fun ones.

Actually, I was just trying to help you see these stories

for what they truly are.

So many of the tales we tell about our nation's founding

aren't really history.

They're modern myths designed to inspire us.

And there's value in that.

But, by flattening out the rough edges of history,

we also miss out on even more interesting

and important truths.

Wow, I never thought of it that way.

You may actually have a point there, Adam.

And plus, sometimes the real story

is even weirder than the myth.

Did you know that George Washington's teeth

weren't made of wood?

His actual dentures were made

from the teeth of other people.

And sometimes, even donkey teeth.

Wow, that is crazy.

And Washington never wore a wig.

He just powdered his hair,

which was naturally a shade of reddish-brown.

My secret's out! I must retreat!

Vanity, thy name is Washington.

And the cherry-tree-chopping story was just a myth

made up by a biographer to sell more books.

Okay, Adam, you've made your point.

Oh, and Molly Pitcher? Not a real person!

Okay, I think that's all we have time for.

And Congress voted for independence on July 2nd,

not July 4th!

Yes, yes, you're a virtual ruin-pedia.

And the Pledge of Allegiance was written

by a Baptist minister to celebrate

- Christopher Columbus, and... - Wow, fascinating.

Okay, we're ending now.

No, wait! There's more!

Hi, I'm Amoly

and this is "Same Time, Different Place."

When people talk about overcoming tyranny

and oppression in the 1700s, the American Revolution

is the first event that comes to mind.

But if you really want to celebrate a people

throwing off the yoke of oppression,

you should know the story of the Haitian revolution

and Toussaint Louverture.

In 1791, Haiti was a French colony

known as Saint-Domingue.

By brutally extracting the labor of enslaved people

to produce and export sugar,

Haiti became France's most profitable colony.

This colony makes so much money!

Vive la France! Vive slavery!

Many of these men and women were kidnapped from their homes

and forced to work on an island halfway around the world,

all for the sake of their French masters.

The situation seemed impossible to overcome,

until the French Revolution provided a spark.

Toussaint, did you hear? The French are revolting!

Tell me about it. They stink!

No!

The people are overthrowing the powers that be.

If they can do it, so can we!

- Oi. I have a plan. - First...

And so, on August 21st, 1791, the enslaved began to revolt.

Slavery!

Slavery!

Slavery! Oh!

Oh! Oh!

Yeah, I deserved that.

I am Toussaint Louverture.

I have undertaken vengeance.

I want liberty and equality to reign in Saint-Domingue!

Unite yourselves, brothers, and fight!

Under the leadership of Toussaint,

the enslaved people, with no training, no weapons,

many still in chains, stormed the homes of their masters.

Follow me, brothers!

The declaration of the rights of man said it!

Men are born and remain free!

He drove out the French, he drove out the English,

he drove out the Spanish.

Ha ha!

I beat England!

I beat France!

I pulled down Spain's underpants!

He abolished slavery

and declared himself governor general

over the entire island of Hispa�ola.

Slavery is dead!

Toussaint's rule would last until 1803

when Napoleon, now ruler of France,

sent troops to recapture Saint-Domingue.

Toussaint was captured and taken to France,

where he died in prison.

Do not waver, my brothers.

Fight on and avenge me!

But his followers did not give up,

and one man, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, took the lead.

Do not give up, brothers.

Vive liberty!

The formerly enslaved people

managed to drive out the army of Napoleon,

the greatest conqueror of the era.

And on January 1st, they declared Saint-Domingue

an independent nation.

Now that, my friends, is a story worth telling.

A group of enslaved people with limited means and no rights

defeated three national superpowers, including Napoleon,

and freed themselves to create

the first black Republic in the world.

Haiti.

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