You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

Hello, and welcome to Ben Franklin's World Revisited,

a series of classic episodes that bring fresh perspective to our latest episodes

and add deeper connections to our understanding of early

American history. And I'm your host, Liz Covart. In May 1775, the delegates of the Second

Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia, a city bustling with political intrigue, economic

ambition, and imperial tension. As we discovered in our recent conversation in episode

411 with historian Paul Cahan, by the time the delegates arrived, Philadelphia was not just

the largest city in British North America. It was a dynamic center of dissent, diplomacy,

and revolutionary ferment. This May, May 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Second Continental

Congress. And to help us continue our commemoration of this important milestone, we're revisiting

episode 202 about the early history of the United States Congress. We'll explore how and why Congress

took its current form after the American

Revolution under the United States Constitution, and how the new bicameral legislature departed from

earlier forms of representative government. In this conversation, we'll rejoin two historians

from the Office of the Historian of the United States House of Representatives, Matt Woznewski,

the historian of the House of Representatives, and Terence Rucker, a historical publication

specialist. Together, Matt and Terrence will help us discover how early Americans designed

their national legislature based on past experiences with the first and second Continental

Congresses,

the origins and development of the House of Representatives,

including its early structure, procedures, and precedents,

...