How America Invaded Canada

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dan narrates the remarkable story of how George Washington's newly established Continental Army tried to conquer Canada in the brutal winter of 1775. The American Revolutionary forces believed their northern neighbour would surely welcome them as liberators, as they themselves fought off the yoke of British rule. Many imagined that these two vast territories were destined to unite into a single continental power. But what followed was a disastrous, freezing, chaotic nightmare.

Written by Dan Snow, produced by McKenna Fernandez, and edited by Matthew Wilson and Dougal Patmore.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It was the first American attack on another country.
0:07.0	It would be easy, predicted George Washington.
0:09.0	The Americans would be welcomed as liberators.
0:12.0	The target, Canada, their northern neighbors.
0:16.0	Surely, these two vast territories should be fused into one continental-sized power.
0:23.4	What followed was an ordeal, a nightmare of endurance,
0:27.4	one of the most extraordinary stories in which the whole future of North America was at stake.
0:33.2	It's a tale of bravery, stupidity, and life, a story of war in short,
0:37.4	and how the Americans, in a blizzard, in the tale of bravery, stupidity and life, a story of war in short,
0:41.6	and how the Americans, in a blizzard, in the depths of winter,
0:46.9	came a few city blocks away from conquering a massive empire.
0:50.0	250 years on from that dramatic campaign, this is Dan Snow's history hit and the story of the American invasion of Canada.
1:08.9	The Green Mountain Boys, they had bonded in the past over their hatred of New Yorkers.
1:14.6	These were frontiersmen who were staking out land in the wilderness west of New Hampshire,
1:20.0	and they swore that they would never submit themselves to the rule of effete lawyers from Albany.
1:27.3	They had come to the frontier explicitly to escape the rule of such bewigued sophisticates.
1:33.4	The Green Mountain boys, they chose their own leaders.
1:36.1	They were headquartered in a tavern.
1:38.8	They were tough.
1:40.0	When New York administrators or surveyors came north to try and tame the majestic landscape,
1:44.6	what is now Vermont, the boys would chase them out of town with insults, threats, fists,
1:51.0	and worse.
	...

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