RPTM Podcast Episode Sixteen: Greek Life, The Boston Tea Party, Thomas Paine, and the American Revolution

 
When I set up this podcast, I started with the mantra of “breaking down the myths of monolithic history and tells our story through multiple lenses.” I aim to do that every episode. But what does that mean? Lenses? Is that something taken literally? If you step back and think about lenses, they are essential parts of reading glasses and microscopes. Can’t read the fine print? Grab your glasses to get that clarity? Need to look at a plant cell for your microbiology class? Change the lens on the microscope and have at it. Different tools are required depending on how in-depth you want to view things.

This brings us to this episode. We start in on the American Revolution. This seminal event in American history is so jam-packed with books, documentaries, first-person accounts, and historical land markers that we have a broad base to draw history from. There are entire college courses dedicated to this one event. We will start with a cookie-cutter, standard overview of the war, and will transition to the finite in later episodes, really breaking down the people and places as far as we can go. Be prepared to jump back in forth in time and give your eyes a chance to re-adjust. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• The North American fraternity and sorority system began with students who wanted to meet secretly, usually for discussions and debates not thought appropriately by their schools' faculty. Before 1776 in what would become the United States of America, collegiate student fraternal organizations that promoted scholarship, rhetoric, and ethical conduct existed only at Yale, the College of William and Mary, and The College of New Jersey. After that, literary societies came into existence at virtually all the colleges and universities in America.
•  In what became known as the Boston Tea Party, a party of men dressed as Native Americans dumped the tea chest’s contents into Boston Harbor after the governor, Thomas Hutchinson, refused colonists’ demands for the ships to depart peacefully with their cargo unloaded. 
• Thomas Paine was an English-American writer and political pamphleteer whose Common Sense pamphlet and Crisis papers were important influences on the American Revolution. Other works that contributed to his reputation as one of the greatest political propagandists in history were Rights of Man, a defense of the French Revolution and republican principles, and The Age of Reason, an exposition of the place of religion in society.
• The American Revolution arose from growing tensions between Great Britain's 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, representing the British crown. Skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775 kicked off the armed conflict. By the following summer, the rebels were waging a full-scale war for their independence. 

CHAPTERS
​0:00 ​Start
0:37​ Intro
2:08​ Greek Life
6:55​ Boston Tea Party
10:43​ Thomas Paine
22:59​ The American Revolution
34:03​ Outro

RESOURCES
History of North American fraternities and sororities
On this day, the Boston Tea Party lights a fuse
Thomas Paine
In Europe: Rights Of Man
Revolutionary War

Episode 15

RPTM Podcast

Episode 17