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.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Key Battles of American History.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And as you know, listeners, Sean McIver and I just finished a eight-part series on the Texas Revolution.

We did six episodes on battles.

We took you all the way back from Spanish, Texas, all the way through the aftermath of the war and the legacy of the war.

Then we did a couple of episodes on Alamo movies.

But now we're moving on to the next war.

And as Sean and I discussed a while back, you can really think of the Texas Revolution

as the Mexican-American War Part 1, or the prequel, if you will.

And now we're going to move on to part two or the sequel or the main event.

So we'll call this series Key Battles of the Mexican-American War.

Sean is back with me again, as always.

Well, Sean, you're ready to move on to part two of this saga?

Sure thing.

All right, we are ready.

So what we're going to talk about in this first episode of the Mexican-American War is the events that we're going on in Mexico and Texas in 1836 through 1844.

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