War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Music your host, James Early. Hello and welcome to Key Battles of the French and Indian War, our survey of the

conflict that shaped the fate of two great empires and laid the groundwork for the American

Revolution.

I'm your host, James Early, as always, and I am joined by

my co-host, Jacob, how are you, sir? I'm doing great, James. How about you? I am fantastic. I've

been wanting to do this series for quite some time, as you know, and we're finally doing it,

finally doing it. So, well, shall we? You ready?

Absolutely. Let's just dive right in. Let's do it. So I want to kind of set the background a little

bit here way back. And I want to mention, for starters, that for centuries, France and England

had been fighting each other.

And I'm going to list to you all the wars that they fought.

And I'm not going to like go into much detail about any of them, but this will not be on the test, listener.

So don't worry about that.

You don't have to memorize all this stuff.

But just sit back and listen to all these times that these two countries had fought.

And I'm not going to conclude,

...