You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

Ben Franklin's world is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.

I think initially people thought they wore buckskin and kun skin hats and that was very far from the truth. Hello and welcome to episode 374 of Ben Franklin's world.

The podcast dedicated to helping you,

learn more about how the people and events of our early American past

have shaped the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Kovart.

We tend to think of the American Revolution

and its war for independence

as the process that gave birth to the United States.

And the American Revolution was certainly

the United States' founding moment,

but its war for independence was also the fifth major

war for European Empire in North America.

Now the four wars that preceded the American Revolutionary War typically saw Great Britain and France fighting over territory in North America.

First, there was King Williams War, a nine-year war that took place between 1688 and 1672.

Queen Anne's War, or the War of Spanish Succession, occurred between 1702 and 1713.

Then there was the War of Austrian Succession or King George's War that took place between 1744 and 1748,

and then there was the Seven Years War or French and Indian War, which resulted in warfare that

redefined Europe's worldwide colonial landscape in Great Britain's favor.

Now the American Revolution and its war for independence did result in the birth of the

United States, but it also played out in a way that allowed Great Britain's European

...