America's First War on Christmas w/ Bruce Carlson

The Road to Now

Benjamin Sawyer

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2021

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On December 25, 1776, George Washington and his men celebrated their first post-Declaration of Independence Christmas by crossing a freezing river to mount a surprise attack against their enemies. The plan worked, but almost 250 years later the story of Washington crossing the Delaware might surprise you too. In this episode, RTN favorite Bruce Carlson of My History Can Beat Up Your Politics joins Bob & Ben for a conversation about one of the US's most recognized, yet little-known battles and how it affected the course of the Revolutionary War.

If you enjoy this episode, check out My History Can Beat Up Your Politics, available anywhere you get The Road to Now. You can also hear Bruce in RTN Episode 85: The History of US-Mexican Relations w/ Bruce Carlson, recorded live from Avetts at the Beach in 2018.

This episode is an enhanced rebroadcast of episode #154 that includes additional primary source readings not included in the original episode. The rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now.
0:12.1	Friends, we are approaching the holiday season, and today we are happy to share with you
0:16.0	an episode of Christmas past, America's First War on Christmas with the wonderful Bruce Carlson
0:22.6	of My History Can Beat Up Your Politics. This was a fun conversation we had a couple years back,
0:28.2	and I thought, let's bring it back out. And one of the things I love about doing re-airs is that
0:33.0	sometimes I get to go back and add some things I would have liked to add before. So this conversation,
0:38.6	the same core conversation we aired, but I've included some readings of primary source documents
0:43.3	that I thought were really useful, actually, a couple of assigned in my class because I think
0:47.0	they're quintessential. Just getting into the mind of Washington and what he's going through. Some of
0:51.8	my favorite descriptions of Hamilton around the time and then at Princeton and then a little more in-depth description of the torture that the
1:00.5	British will put traders through. So we hope you guys enjoy this and have a great holiday season.
1:06.8	Just to let you know now, we're going to take a week off next week. Bob's going to be traveling.
1:27.6	I'm going to be traveling and just having some time to focus here on the family. You know, good for us. And we hope you guys enjoy it too. Although I should add that this might not be the last time you hear me the day this episode drops. Because if you're listening on Monday or Tuesday morning, don't forget patrons, Tuesday,
1:34.0	December 21st at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, we've got a holiday trivia game. So I look forward to seeing you guys there to play games with you and watch you win prizes. And just to say thank you one
1:41.2	more time because you guys keep us going. So we hope you enjoy this re-air and we hope 2021 has been, I don't know, better than you thought.
1:51.4	I don't even know what to say.
1:53.4	Here's the 2022 in a bright future.
1:56.2	We can do this.
2:00.1	This episode is the first war on Christmas.
2:05.6	That's right.
2:06.2	The first time that America had a war on Christmas.
2:08.7	War.
	...

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